Throughout his presidency, Oath Keepers fully embraced Trump, including Rhodes, who was seated in the VIP section at Trumps 2019 rally in El Paso, Texas. This militaristic group consists of national leadership and state, county and local chapters scattered across the country. He eventually reached a plea deal on local charges against him, pleading no contest to one charge in exchange for the state dropping other charges. As Rhodes tweeted in early March 2020, Its critical that towns and counties do all they can with their own resources now to prepare. The center. "Back in 2014, they appeared to be a pretty solid conservative group, I can't speak to them now," he said. This sentiment is encapsulated in the socalled Oath Keepers Pledge, which they ask all members and supporters to take. Because the government ultimately stood down in the face of armed threats from Bundys defenders, the standoff wound up being a highlight of the radical right but one that the Oath Keepers got no glory from. Oath Keepers is an American far-right [1] anti-government militia [1] [3] whose leaders have been convicted of violently opposing the government of the United States, including the transfer of Presidential power as prescribed by the US Constitution. At the same time, Oath Keepers have also organized or participated in armed confrontations with law enforcement in different parts of the country, such as the Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada in 2014. But the files showed that Rhodes had tapped into a deep current of anxiety, one that could cause a surprisingly large contingent of. The Oath Keepers claim it is their mission to protect Trump Rally attendees and provide them escorts to and from their vehicles. Rhodes himself participated in aprotest outside the Dallas County Jailin Texas where Luther was being held. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext. They are also proponents of the sovereign citizen movement, believing that they are not subject to any laws of the U.S. government. News never stops. While criticizing the occupation, the Oath Keepers did take part in a coalition of militias in the Pacific Northwest called the Pacific Patriots Network, which served as a buffer between the occupiers and government forces. The Oath Keepers leader, Stewart Rhodes, has posted various livestreams on the groups website claiming that undocumented immigrants are part of a larger plan to flood the United States with Democratic voters to shatter the American social system. Oath Keepers is an essential contribution to our understanding of the growing appeal and violent potential of ever-evolving forms of domestic extremism. The groups fears around government overreach are most clearly exemplified in its list of 10 Orders We Will Not Obey a compendium of perceived but unrealized threats from the government. Members patrolled the site of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, and polling locations in 2016 and 2020, allegedly to discourage and report voter fraud. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was convicted Tuesday of seditious conspiracy for a violent plot to overturn President Biden's election, handing the Justice Department a major victory in. However, the outlet also noted that the tactics of the Oath Keepers were constantly shifting in an effort to evade law enforcement. Fish and Wildlife celebrates reintroduction of rare West Virginia fish that 'looks like a candy cane'. And Im worried about the safety of the people up there. This estimated size would still make the Oath Keepers larger than any single traditional militia group. The Oath Keepers regularly denounce FEMA and their response to natural disasters, highlighting notable failures during Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Harvey. What differentiates the Oath Keepers from other antigovernment extremist groups is that the Oath Keepers explicitly focus on recruiting current and former military members, police officers and first responders (although they accept anyone as members). Im going to use my training and become one of those domestic terrorists that youre so afraid of from the DHS reports. He still has many supporters within the Patriot movement. For a dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist who had been planning for dystopian collapse for . Thats why Oath Keepers will be posted outside of D.C. Weve got some of our best men working on the plan right now for where were going to be. Founder Stewart Rhodes is a former Montana attorney and Army veteran who acts as the groups main spokesperson. C. Ryan Barber. Brentwood, New Hampshire, February 2013: Federal authorities charged open carry activist and Oath Keeper Johnathon Irish with five felonies stemming from an investigation into the alleged sales of homemade assault rifles to undercover agents. Oath Keepers have advertised various anti-lockdown events and calls to action, for example protesting outside of a Dallas-based judges home to demand the immediate release of a business owner who had defied lockdown orders. While the Oath Keepers official statement regarding the death of George Floyd was to condemn the actions of the officers involved, they have stated that they oppose looting and arson and have expressed a general distrust for the Black Lives Matter protests. Greenwood, Delaware, February 2015: Oath Keeper Matthew Opaliski was charged with three counts of dealing firearms without a license and two counts of unlawful transfer of firearms after he allegedly sold, traded or gave firearms to a person who was not a Delaware resident. At a rally in Lexington, Massachusetts on April 19 . Oath Keepers, along with many of thesame right-wing personalitiesat these events, took part in the Capitol insurrection weeks later. Two elected officials in Wilbraham and Cape Cod are listed as being members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group. And go out into public on election day, dressed to blend in with the public with video, still camera, and notepad in hand, to look for and document suspected criminal vote fraud or intimidation activities. And he made clear that it was the Democrats, not the Republicans, who might steal the election. Throughout 2020, the group has also posted several calls to action in places like Washington D.C., New Orleans and Texas, looking for volunteers to protect monuments across the United States, arguing that these measures were needed to protect the monuments from Marxist domestic enemies who were seeking to destroy American history. He warned about a possible Benghazi-style attack targeting President Trump and said that the Oath Keepers will be stationing its best men outside of Washington, D.C. around the election because they are anticipating the government to enable a coup against Trump. January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol:At least nine people associated with the Oath Keepers have beenchargedwith conspiracy in connection with the January 6 attack, with prosecutors alleging that the defendants coordinated to travel to Washington, D.C., breach the Capitol and disrupt the certification of the 2020 election. All Rights Reserved. During the pandemic, and the installation of public health safety measures, Oath Keepers responded by claiming to protect and supportbusinesses and business ownerswho reopened in defiance of these guidelines. Three individuals associated with the Oath Keepers, a paramilitary organization focused on recruitment of current and former military, law enforcement, and first responder personnel, were indicted today in federal court in the District of Columbia for conspiring to obstruct Congress, among other charges. Rhodes eventually left his job at the court and began looking toward forming an anti-government movement. Examples of these orders include the government imposing martial law, confiscating citizens guns and forcing Americans into concentration camps. 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When executing a search warrant, law enforcement officers discovered a live napalm bomb and dozens of other explosives in a storage locker; he eventually was indicted on 97 different charges, including 18 counts of unlawful possession of dangerous ordnance, 23 counts of receiving stolen property, 23 counts of possession of criminal tools, 10 counts of failure to secure dangerous ordnance, one count of perjury, and 21 counts of pandering obscenity involving child pornography. Massachusetts - site of . Oath Keepers also responded to a request for protection by salon owner Shelley Luther when she reopened her business on April 24 against public health mandates and then tore up a cease-and-desist letter from local authorities. A large part of Rhodes' and the Oath Keepers' defense was that they believed the attack on the Capitol was based on eventual orders from former President Trump. These supposed threats from the government are all key to the central conspiracy theory propagated by the antigovernment movement, namely the New World Order. Groups that are part of theantigovernment movement, including the Oath Keepers, believe the government is secretly planning, along with foreign countries and the United Nations, to impose martial law, seize all Americans guns, force resisters into concentration camps and install a one-world totalitarian government known as the New World Order.. On May 30, John Shirley, a constable in Hood County and a member of the Oath Keepers board, issued a call to action, encouraging members toshow up armedwith rifles to provide security outside Luthers salon. The Oath Keepers say that their mission is to defend the . He would deny you the right for trial to jury, but we would give him a trial by jury. WASHINGTON - A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia has returned an indictment, which was unsealed today, charging a member of the Oath Keepers with conspiracy and other charges for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. However, a minority of Oath Keepers are so antiauthoritarian that they have been less willing to express support for law enforcement. In 2014, the Oath Keepers highlighted the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa on their web site, questioning the Obama administrations response and raising concerns that it could be used to justify medical martial law in the U.S. As early as January 2020, Oath Keepers began posting about the seriousness of COVID-19, which was spreading at the time within China, and in the first two months of the pandemics spread in the U.S., they provided advice and information regarding COVID-19 to their followers. Hundreds of elected officials, military members, and law enforcement officers appear on the membership lists of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, according to a new report published Wednesday by the Anti-Defamation League.. Why it matters: The Oath Keepers have risen to national prominence for their alleged role in the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The Oath Keepers fled, leaving Bundys other supporters to mock them as cowards and delusional paranoids. We Oath Keepers are both honor-bound and eager to be there in strength to do our part. Stewart Rhodes, posted on the Oath Keepers website, Jan. 4, 2021, You must act NOW as a wartime President, pursuant to your oath to defend the Constitution, which is very similar to the oath all of us veterans swore. Rhodes formally launched the. Following the 2020 election, in which former President Donald Trump lost to President Biden, the Oath Keepers began working on a weeks-long campaign to have the election overturned. The Oath Keepers urge military and law enforcement personnel to step up to stop the conspirators. In April 2010,Matthew Fairfield, a suburban Cleveland man described by prosecutors as the president of a local Oath Keepers chapter, was arrested for storing bombs at his and a friends home and for obstructing justice. The Oath Keepers did not have 25,000 soldiers at the ready. Rhodes, in a blog post on the groups website, claimed authoritiesbacked offonce they knew Oath Keepers and others had shown up. The Center for Strategic and International Studieshas additionally outlined a large swath of the Oath Keepers' agenda. He was tracked down and arrested the following week in Houston, Texas, extradited back to Oklahoma, where (after several abortive attempts) he finally stood trial, was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Prior to his arrest, Dyer had posted a YouTube video in which Dyer, a former Marine, said, Join the military? Founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers is a large right-wing anti-government extremist group. We want to see a restoration of the militia in this country,Rhodes explainedon aGod and Guns podcast. He has since been arrested onseveral chargesand is included in the larger conspiracy case with over a dozen other Oath Keepers for their coordination efforts ahead of Jan. 6. In November 2017, Ritzheimer was sentenced to spend a year and a day in federal prison. Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniel toldHigh Country News that he was [concerned] in that there were militia,Three Percentersand Oath Keepers from around the country that had come in and were potentially unpredictable. Ultimately, there was no standoff. The organization urged members to form security networks within their communities to block neighborhoods with vehicles and armed men, and following one protest in El Paso, the group claimed that they successfully served as a deterrent to anyone looking to inflict damage, thereby taking credit for peaceful protests. Minuta later was connected to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, acting as a security guard for Roger Stone earlier that morning before participating in the insurrection himself later that day. The Oath Keepers was officially launched with a rally in Lexington, Massachusetts, on Apr. Thirteen people associated with the Oath Keepers have. These include: Impending Takeover of the U.S. by the Marxist Left: On September 10, 2020, Twitter announced that it had banned the accounts belonging to the Oath Keepers for violating the platforms policies on violent extremist groups as part of the platforms wider effort to limit the presence of militias on its platform. In May 2012, a federal judge in Knoxville sentenced Huff to four years in prison. But that wasnt the case in early 2016, when members of the same Bundy family who were at the center of the 2014 Nevada standoff got interested in another conflict with the federal government, this one in Harney County, Oregon. The first order, for example, that they refuse to follow is any order to disarm the American people. They also pledge to disobey any order to impose martial law or to support foreign troops on American soil. Also in 2015, Oath Keepers in Montana put out anothercall to action, summoning members to help another local miner fight the government even though the Forest Service had been working with the miner for some time to resolve the issue. Local police released a statement announcing that the group broke the law byproviding security without first obtaining a license.They called on the group to cease their activities. Despite this, the Bundys and a number of other heavily armed militants decided to break away from a pro-Hammond rally in Oregon and occupy the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a famous birding location. ). Stewart Rhodes, My Personal Pledge of Resistance Against Any Attempt to Disarm Us by Means of an Assault Weapons Ban, on the Oath Keepers website, Dec. 19, 2012. The number of active duty police and military personnel who have publicly admitted to being Oath Keepers is very small; the number of closeted members may be larger. He had a duty and responsibility to step up. This activity mirrors the Oath Keepers behavior in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, when a small of group of armed local Oath Keepers, led by Sam Andrews, took to the streets during the unrest following a grand jurys decision not to charge a former police officer for the shooting death of a Black teenager, Michael Brown, Jr. Stoking Fears about Antifa: Oath Keepers use the specter of antifa as a substitute for their former foe, the federal government. Impending Martial Law: One of the most prominent Oath Keeper theories is that a large scale pandemic, natural disaster or terrorist attack will give the government an excuse to impose martial law resulting in (but not limited to) door to door gun confiscation, the ban of interstate travel and detainment of citizens in concentration camps. Label it pretend legislation like the Founding Fathers did.Stewart Rhodes, during an interview on Infowars The Alex Jones Show, Jan. 20, 2021, It is CRITICAL that all patriots who can be in D.C. get to D.C. to stand tall in support of President Trumps fight to defeat the enemies foreign and domestic who are attempting a coup, through the massive voter fraud and related attacks on our Republic. Barbeau pleaded guilty to possessing a machine gun and was sentenced to 27 months in prison in September 2017. The trial of Oath Keepers leader Stewart . In return, prosecutors agreed not to reimpose the other three charges, which had been recently dropped, against Irish. As a result, Rhodes argued, the Oath Keepers could not be found guilty because they were simply following their president's orders. The standoff with federal and other law enforcement agencies lasted 41 days. The Second Amendment Under Assault: Oath Keepers call for the nullification of all gun laws and view any gun control measures as schemes designed to dismantle the Second Amendment. The Oath Keepers wereparticularly active in 2020, participating in various anti-lockdown protests, providing vigilante-style security for local communities and businesses during the Black Lives Matter protests that spread in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, and warning about a potential takeover by the Marxist left during the 2020 election. Since the election of President Trump, the Oath Keepers have routinely stoked fears regarding the Democratic Party, stating that the party is in fact a Marxist-Islamist organization, where an unholy alliance of communists and jihadists aim to defeat their common enemy Western Civilization. Rhodes formally launched the Oath. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes is seen on video during the hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, on Capitol Hill in . To prove the imminent threat of martial law, Rhodes often points to the World War II internment of Japanese Americans and to the gun confiscation by police and military members in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (a federal court subsequently ordered New Orleans officials to return all confiscated firearms). He was convicted and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. They also offered security to business owners who defied COVID-19 public health safety measures. The group has also recruited from among people already involved in the anti-government extremist movement. The driving theory behind the Oath Keepers is that the federal government has been overtaken by a mass liberal conspiracy in an effort to strip Americans of their rights. The Pacific Patriots Network also includes antigovernment extremist groups aligned with the Three Percenters, and the Oath Keepers contingent is the very same chapter that took part in Operation Gold Rush in Oregon in 2015. Later in 2014, members of the Oath Keepers showed up in Ferguson, Missouri, during the unrest that followed the death of Michael Brown, a Black man, by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Before 2019, the Oath Keepers Twitter platform used the term deep state only once, but since then the term has been used at least 79 times on the platform, which suggests that the organization finds this rhetoric to be a useful tactic to appeal to the large pool of right-wing actors who believe in the conspiracy. In response, the group posted acall to actionon its website. He received two months of probation for charges related to the Freedom Plaza incident. t. e. Social conservatism in the United States is a political ideology focused on the preservation of traditional values and beliefs. Overreaching laws or regulations are also expected. Along with the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters, the Oath Keepers are among the most prominent, heavily armed extremists known to have taken part in the deadly mob that tried to delay. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps. In 2014, Rhodes claimed the group had an unlikely 35,000 dues-paying members who are said to be mostly, although not exclusively, current and former military, law enforcement and emergency first responders. "While legal methods like lawsuits have proven effective, and prosecutions have dismantled some of the most dangerous far-right terrorist groups, the effort to fully unseat the rise of white nationalism willonly come from a mass wave of organized resistance. . The head of their group is not escaping justice that much is certain. Antigovernment rhetoric energized his defense and underpinned his lack of cooperation in the case. Oath Keepers across the country have engaged in a wide array of activities, some of which have gotten considerable media attention. Washington, D.C., January 2021:Federal authorities have arrested at least 25 people associated with the Oath Keepers, charging them in connection with their efforts to impede the processes governing the transfer of presidential power in the lead up to and during the January 6 insurrection. The group continued to plead with Trump to declare a national emergency to build his border wall, attended a We Build the Wall event in Sunland Park, New Mexico, and mobilized to Texas for a security operation along the border. In addition to peddling conspiracy theories and paranoia, the Oath Keepers use a number of strategies to stay in the forefront of the antigovernment extremist movement in the United States. Phillips was eventually convicted and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. It was incorporated in 2009 by founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a lawyer and former paratrooper. Protests broke out in the city following the grand jurys decision not to indict Wilson. The Oath Keepers have become indelibly tied to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and their leader, Stewart Rhodes, was convicted of seditious conspiracy related to that day. Then after we convict him he should be hung by the neck until dead. Stewart Rhodes, at an event in Tempe, Arizona, May 5, 2015, It is the height of Orwellian perversion of language and logic to say that disarming you of the most effective arms for combat that you still have is somehow not really disarming you, because you still have hunting rifles and shotguns. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice National Security Divisions Counterterrorism Section. The group advocates for Americans to prepare for inevitable conflict with the government by stockpiling goods and supplies, engaging in paramilitary training and working to create small, self-reliant community networks. Eleven Oath Keepers, including Rhodes, were indicted by a federal grand jury on Jan. 12, 2022, and charged with seditious conspiracy, which is defined as a crime against the state. The other orders they refuse to follow are of a similar sort. The core idea of Elmer Stewart Rhodes' group, the Oath Keepers, is that its members vow to support the oaths they took on joining law enforcement or the military to defend the Constitution forever and the group's own list of 10 "Orders We Will Not Obey."The list is a compendium of perceived, unrealized threats from the government - orders, for instance, to force Americans into . Stewart Rhodes, founder of the citizen militia group known as the Oath Keepers speaks during a rally outside the White House in Washington, on June 25, 2017. Oath Keepers have several theories they repeatedly peddle as proof that their constitutional republic is being taken over and destroyed by evil forces. The groups website called Quartzsite apivot pointfor Americans finally to see the looming danger of the New World Order. In the end, the Oath Keepers got a lot of headlines, but accomplished virtually nothing. The Oath Keepers did denounce the Malheur occupation because, asRhodes wrote, It is not being done with the consent of the locals or at their request, without the request of the Hammond family and because it is not in direct defense of anyone.. Prior to his arrest, Kokesh claimed to be an Oath Keeper and promoted the Oath Keepers through his radio talk show, Adam vs. the Man.. Oath Keepers founder used money donated to the far-right group for holiday travel and personal expenses: January 6 trial. In 2013, four years after its formation, the Oath Keepers announced the planned formation of Citizen Preservation Teams, which now are called the more sanitized name ofCommunity Preparedness Teams(CPTs). Oath Keepers responded and were stationed in Granbury, Texas, outside Lift the Bar gym, supposedly to protect the owner from arrest for violating COVID-19 orders. Dyer was extradited back to Oklahoma and subsequently sentenced to 30 years in prison. Oath Keepers explain that if the federal government issues an unconstitutional order often illustrated by extreme hypotheticals such as mass gun confiscation or illegally mass detaining Americans in concentration camps it is up to the military and law enforcement to enforce these edicts. Ritzheimer pleaded guilty and received a prison sentence of one year and a day. However, there were no such orders from Trump, and this defense from the Oath Keepers was swiftly rebuked in court, eventually leading to Rhodes and four others' guilty verdict. We dont want to see things escalate, especially over an issue that we have been working all along in a very cooperative way to resolve. Ultimately, again, no real confrontation occurred. On July 4, 2013,Adam Kokesh, an Oath Keeper who had promoted the group on his Internet talk show, loaded a shotgun in D.C.s Freedom Plaza in protest of the citys gun laws. The Oath Keepers declared theirmission accomplishedand ended the security operation in what they touted as a victory against the government. Obviously, were not in a confrontation,David Smith, regional spokesman for the Forest Service, told the Southern Poverty Law Center. Most relate to their recruitment and promotional efforts. Support MassLive.com, Heather Morrison | hmorrison@masslive.com. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as unlawful enemy combatants or to subject them to military tribunal. The Oath Keepers, who believe themselves to be " the last line of defense against tyranny ," are more aptly described as a conspiracy group, or extremist militia, who have set aside their anti . Documents shared by the ADL claimed that politicians, police officers, firefighters, EMTs and other public officials were members of the extremist group. 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