OATHKEEPERS 3 Gondor

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DOJ 3 TRIES TO ERASE CONVICTION 4 26

ED FUCKING MARTIN

KEEPS SHOWING UP IN CONGRESS HEARING AUDIENCE?

SEE LIE GASLIGHT

BLANKET PRE-EMPTIVE PARDON TO EMBOLDEN MILITIA 2026/2028?

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NEW DOKU MSNBC KINg OF APOCALYPSE

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j6 ch 5

Freeman’s sense of dread is well-founded. According to Federal prosecutors, a member of the Oath Keepers militia convicted of multiple offenses for his role in the January 6th insurrection had a document in his residence with the words “DEATH LIST” written across the top.377

His death list contained just two names: Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

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OMFG

Justice Department moves to toss seditious conspiracy convictions of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to throw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders who were sentenced to prison terms for leading members of the far-right extremist groups in attacking the U.S. Capitol to keep President Donald Trump in office over five years ago.

Trump commuted the prison sentences of several Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders last January in a sweeping act of clemency for all 1,500-plus defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

The request by the Justice Department would go a step further and erase all the convictions for extremist group leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who didn’t receive pardons last January.

The move to abandon the convictions represented a stunning reversal from the Biden administration, which hailed the guilty verdicts as a crucial victory in its bid to hold accountable those responsible for what prosecutors described as an attack on the heart of American democracy. It’s part of the Trump administration’s continued efforts to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 attack and downplay the violence carried out by the mob of Trump supporters that left more than 100 police officers injured.

AP correspondent Ben Thomas reports the Justice Department is seeking the dismissal of seditious conspiracy convictions over the Capitol Riot.

In court filings, prosecutors asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the convictions so that the government can permanently dismiss the indictments.

Who are the Oath Keepers?

Rhodes joined the Army after high school and served for three years before being honorably discharged after a parachuting accident in 1986. He then attended the University of Nevada and later graduated from Yale Law School in 2004. He founded the Oath Keepers in 2009.

Oath Keepers takes its name from the U.S military Oath of Enlistment, which states:

“I, , do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States …”

From left, Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, and Enrique Tarrio, Joe Biggs and Zach Rehl, members of the far-right group the Proud Boys, rally outside the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 21, 2025. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Informed by his law background, Rhodes places a particular emphasis on the part of the oath that states they will defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

He developed a legal theory that justifies ignoring what he refers to as “unlawful orders” after witnessing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Following the natural disaster, local law enforcement was assigned the task of confiscating guns, many of which officers say were stolen or found in abandoned homes.

Rhodes was alarmed, believing that the Second Amendment rights of citizens were being violated. Because of this, he argued that people who had military or law enforcement backgrounds had a legal duty to refuse what the group considers unlawful orders, including any that violated constitutionally protected rights, such as the right to bear arms.

In the Oath Keepers’ philosophy, anyone who violates these rights are domestic enemies to the Constitution. And if you follow the orders, you’ve violated your oath.

Explaining the origin of the group on the right-wing website ” in November 2025, Rhodes said: “… we were attacked out of the gate, labeled anti-government, which is absurd because we’re defending the Constitution that established the federal government. We were labeled anti-government extremists, all kinds of nonsense because the elites want blind obedience in the police and military.”

Rebuilding and restructuring

In 2022, the nonprofit whistleblower site Distributed Denial of Secrets leaked more than 38,000 names on the Oath Keepers’ membership list.

The Anti-Defamation League estimated that nearly 400 of the names were active law enforcement officers, and that over 100 were serving in the military. Some of these members were investigated by their workplaces but never disciplined for their involvement with the group.

Some members who were not military or law enforcement did lose their jobs over their affiliation. But they held government-related positions, such as a Wisconsin alderman who resigned after he was identified as a member.

This breach of privacy, paired with the dissolution of the organization after Rhodes’ sentencing, will help shape the group going forward.

In his interview with ,” where he announced the group’s relaunch, Rhodes said: “I want to make it clear, like I said, my goal would be to make it more cancel-proof than before. We’ll have resilient, redundant IT that makes it really difficult to take down. … And I want to make sure I get – put people in charge and leadership everywhere in the country so that, you know, down the road, if I’m taken out again, that it can still live on under good leadership without me being there.”

There was a similar shift in organizational structure with the Proud Boys in 2018. That’s when their founder, Gavin McInnes, stepped away from the organization. His departure came after a group of Proud Boys members were involved in a fight with anti-fascists in New York.

Members of the Oath Keepers stand on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File

Prosecutors wanted to try the group as a gang. McInnes, therefore, distanced himself to support their defense that they weren’t in a gang or criminal organization. Ultimately, two of the members were sentenced to four years in prisonfor attempted gang assault charges.

Some Proud Boys members have told me they have since focused on creating local chapters, with in-person recruitment, that communicate on private messaging apps. They aim to protect themselves from legal classification as a gang. It also makes it harder for investigators or activist journalists to monitor them.

This is referred to as a cell style of organization, which is popular with insurgency groups. These groups are organized to rebel against authority and overthrow government structures. The cell organizational style does not have a robust hierarchy but instead produces smaller groups. They all adhere to the same ideology but may not be directly associated.

They may have a leader, but it’s often acknowledged that they are merely a figurehead, not someone giving direct orders. For the Proud Boys, this would be former leader Enrique Tarrio. Proud Boys members I’ve spoken to have referred to him as a “mascot” and not their leader.

Looking ahead

So what does the Rhodes interview indicate about the future of Oath Keepers?

Members will continue supporting Trump while also recruiting more retired military and law enforcement officers. They will create an organizational structure designed to outlive Rhodes. And based on my interactions with the far-right, I believe it’s likely they will create an organizational structure similar to that of the cell style for organizing.

Beyond that, they are going to try to own their IT, which includes hosting their websites and also using trusted online revenue generators.

This will likely provide added security, protecting their membership rolls while making it more difficult for law enforcement agencies to investigate them in the future.

Alexander Lowie, Postdoctoral associate in Classical and Civic Education, University of Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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RWW

11/13/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Michael S. Schmidt @ The New York Times: In Matt Gaetz Scandal, Circumstances Left Teen Vulnerable to Exploitation

A 17-year-old with a homeless parent wanted money for braces and ended up having sex for money with powerful men. She wants the public to have a fuller understanding of how she was victimized.

Brandy Zadrozny @ MSNBC: The conspiracy crowd’s reaction to the Epstein emails? Yawn.

Far-right conspiracy theorists and influencers are a big reason the Epstein scandal hasn’t died. But the newly released emails about Trump haven’t impressed them.

Jeremy Kohler @ ProPublica: How Trump Has Exploited Pardons and Clemency to Reward Allies and Supporters

In his second term, President Donald Trump has largely used his clemency power to benefit allies, donors and culture-war figures — including Jan. 6 defendants.

Hunter Walker @ Talking Points Memo: JD Vance Received a Dire Warning About the Groyper Takeover of the GOP From a Strange Source

The call warning of a dangerous tide of extremism in Donald Trump’s Washington is coming from inside the house — the vice president’s house.

Tommy Christopher @ Mediaite: Megyn Kelly Spends 2 Solid Minutes On How Maybe Jeffrey Epstein Was Actually ‘Not A Pedophile’

YouTube and Sirius XM host Megyn Kelly took a detour to riff about how deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein might not have been “an actual pedophile.”

Aaron Rupar and Thor Benson @ Public Notice: “It’s 4chan s**t": The govt's deranged social media presence

"You see Trump administration accounts that look like they’re literally run by Groypers," Charlie Warzel tells us.

Will Sommer @ The Bulwark: Kash Patel’s Girlfriend Is Driving MAGA Nuts

She’s litigious. They’re sexist. It’s a miasma of loathing.

David Gilbert @ Wired: Stewart Rhodes Relaunched the Oath Keepers. Even Old Oath Keepers Don’t Care

Militia leader Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted for his role in the January 6 attack, is asking potential new members and supporters to send money. Former allies are unconvinced.

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:{:{Nov 13, 2025}:

Stewart Rhodes Relaunched the Oath Keepers. Even Old Oath Keepers Don’t Care

Militia leader Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted for his role in the January 6 attack, is asking potential new members and supporters to send money. Former allies are unconvinced.

WASHNGTON DC UNITED STATES JUNE 6 Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes attends a press conference with Proud Boys leader...

Photograph: Celal Gunes; Getty Images

Stewart Rhodes announced last week that he is relaunching the Oath Keepers, his anti-government militia which virtually disappeared after dozens of its members—including Rhodes—were arrested for their roles in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Rhodes, speaking to the Gateway Pundit this week, says that he sees the relaunched group as playing a role in combating what he labeled an “insurrection by the left” on the streets of US cities. “Right now, under federal statutes, president Trump can call us up as the militia if he sees it necessary, especially for three purposes: to repel invasions, to suppress insurrections, and to execute the laws of the union,” Rhodes said.

But in the days since Rhodes announced their return, experts, former members, and online chatter suggest there is little to no interest in restarting what was, at one point, one of the largest militias in America with a leaked database listing 38,000 supposed members in 2021. This hasn’t stopped Rhodes from asking potential new members and supporters to send money in support of the cause.

But even former Oath Keepers are uninterested. Janet Arroyo, who ran an Oath Keepers chapter in Chino Valley, Arizona, with her husband Jim Arroyo prior to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, says they have not heard from Rhodes in six years and had no plans to rejoin his group.

“He hasn't reached out during his incarceration, nor since being released,” says Arroyo. “No hard feelings, but we are doing what we do and don't spend a lot of time wondering what he's up to. The dumb DC stunt has scared a lot of great patriots into hiding. My guess is he won't be successful.”

Another former Oath Keeper, Jessica Watkins, an army veteran who was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for her role in the Capitol attack, says she hadn’t even heard about the relaunch when WIRED contacted her this week. “I have not heard of a relaunch, but most J6ers I know are trying to rebuild their lives,” says Watkins, who added that even if she wanted to rejoin, she would be unable to do so as she had her sentence commuted rather than being pardoned. “Felons are not allowed to be in the Oath Keepers or work with them.”

Kelly Meggs, who headed up the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers and was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his part in the attack on the Capitol, says he won’t be joining the relaunched Oath Keepers, as he is concerned about being targeted again when Democrats return to power. “I am more worried about the future,” says Meggs. “I think four and five years from now, eight years from now, 12 years from now, whenever it is, anyone that is a member of these organizations stands at risk of what I went through.”

Meggs said he would be interested in taking part in any work the Oath Keepers were carrying out in response to natural disasters, but he won’t be on the streets defending cities from the perceived threat from antifa. “I am not going to be an active member,” says Meggs. “If they’re doing a big march somewhere, I won't be there.”

A review of social media platforms and right-wing message boards shows a decided lack of discussion about the new group over the last week, but Meggs says it’s happening in “one-on-one conversations.”

“This just feels like the latest desperate attempt by Rhodes to cling to relevance,” says Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. “There’s no real appetite for the Oath Keepers in 2025. Why would any young anti-government extremist trust a failed insurrectionist who got all of his followers arrested?”

Rhodes did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.

Rhodes founded the Oath Keepers in 2009 as a reaction to a conspiracy theory that the Obama administration was seeking to trigger economic collapse and impose martial law on American citizens. The group largely operated out of the limelight until 2017 when they began to provide security at Trump events, culminating with dozens of members taking part in the attack on the Capitol. Rhodes was convicted in 2023 of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 18 years in jail, with the judge at the time saying Rhodes presented “an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy.”

In January, Rhodes had his sentence commuted to “time served” by Trump, but did not receive a full pardon like hundreds of other insurrectionists, which means his conviction still stands.

Rhodes first floated the idea of restarting the Oath Keepers in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, claiming his group would have been able to prevent the TPUSA founder’s death if it had been operating.

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MMA

THe Gateway Pundit's Rumble channel on November 9, 2025

STEWART RHODES (FOUNDER, OATH KEEPERS): I've been invited to speak across the country about January 6. And now that I'm relaunching Oath Keepers, I'm getting more invitations to come speak as well. So, yeah, I'm relaunching the organization and rebuilding it.

...

They tried to take us out after January 6 but what man means for evil, God will use for good. I came out stronger after it, and so my goal is to rebuild the organization stronger than ever because it's an essential mission. Absolutely.

JIM HOFT (HOST): Oh, that's wonderful news. So the Oath Keepers is going to have a relaunch here, and Stewart's breaking that news this weekend?

RHODES: Yes, sir.

...

RHODES: I mean, I have to make sure that if I'm ever taken out again or if I'm or when I'm taken out again, that the organization can drive on without me. That's not what happened last time.

...

So we want to make sure it's got resilience and redundancy built in that it can drive on strong. With the same mission, though. You can't call yourself an Oath Keeper if you're not willing to protect people against radical antifa and other leftist violence in the streets. NEW USE OF TERM?

Later in the interview, Rhodes said he wanted to let Trump know that “we're ready to serve, encourage him to do that, call us up as a militia,” and “order us all to come together in our counties under his command.”

Video

Citation

From The Gateway Pundit's Rumble channel on November 9, 2025

STEWART RHODES (FOUNDER, OATH KEEPERS): And one other thing I want to say is that President Trump, as commander in chief, always has absolute authority to call all of us up as the militia because every one of us — in federal statues defining the militia, it's every able-bodied male from age 17-45. And for us veterans, it goes up to age 64 because of our prior training and experience.

Right now, under federal statutes, President Trump can call us up as the militia if he sees it necessary, especially for three purposes: to repel invasions, to suppress insurrections, and to execute the laws of the union. And right now, we see all three of those in play. We have — we're facing an ongoing invasion of this country, it has not stopped. We're facing an insurrection by the left. And we're also facing a direct blocking and resistance against enforcing federal law — federal immigration laws, attacking ICE agents, you know, trying to ram them and run them off the road, throwing bricks to their windows. All of that is going on. And so under those three purposes, he can call up the militia.

And the militia is all of us. So the National Guard is part of the militia, which is why it's completely lawful for him to use the National Guard as he has, and he should do more of that, I think, across the country.

...

He could just say given the circumstances of an invasion, insurrection, and resistance against federal law being being enforced, I'm calling up the militia, ordering all the men to come together [in] every county, put the veterans in charge of training and organizing all the other men and just have them stand too and await his orders. He can do that and I think he should do that. And so that's what I'll be advocating for from him. So from the bottom, from down the rank and file, we can let President Trump know that we're ready to serve, encourage him to do that, call us up as a militia, order us all to come together in our counties under his command, which gives you complete legal sanction to do what you're doing.

...

RHODES: So President Trump is well within his power and authority under the Constitution to bring out the militia — all of the militia, not just the National Guard but the rest of us too. And I think he should.

### January 6 participants are touring right-wing media and calling for retribution following Trump’s pardon

01/24/25 12:57 PM EST

### Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes says he has men stationed outside of D.C. ready to engage in violence on Trump’s order

11/12/20 3:23 PM EST

### On Infowars, Stewart Rhodes likens Oath Keepers to Nelson Mandela, suggests the U.S. is a dictatorship

10/11/22

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OMFG

an 11 25 day after pardon 77 trump coup liars

One participant in the January 6, 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol is now calling on President Donald Trump to establish an armed vigilante squad that exclusively reports to the president.

During a recent appearance on the far-right Gateway Pundit podcast, Stewart Rhodes — who founded the "Oath Keepers" paramilitary group — told host Jim Hoft that not only was he relaunching the Oath Keepers, but issuing a direct call to Trump to deputize his loyal followers to enforce federal laws. Progressive group Media Matters for America noted that Rhodes explicitly urged Trump to use a power that the Constitution assigns to Congress.

"President Trump, as commander in chief, always has absolute authority to call all of us up as the militia ... if he sees it necessary, especially for three purposes: to repel invasions, to suppress insurrections and to execute the laws of the union," Rhodes said. "... So from the bottom, from down the rank and file, we can let President Trump know that we're ready to serve, encourage him to do that, call us up as a militia, order us all to come together in our counties under his command, which gives you complete legal sanction to do what you're doing."

Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 of the U.S. Constitution specifically stipulates that Congress – not the president — has the power "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress." It's unlikely that the federal judiciary would allow Trump to do what Rhodes asked, particularly after a judge ruled earlier this year that Trump's deployment of federal troops to Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (which prohibits the military from being used as a domestic police force).

Rhodes' insistence that his group be used as a private army to serve at the pleasure of the president is particularly ironic given the Oath Keepers' history. George Washington University noted that Rhodes formed the Oath Keepers in 2009 "in response to a perceived conspiracy by the U.S. government to facilitate total economic collapse, thereby providing the pretext to imposing martial law and a system of totalitarian control." But if Trump granted Rhodes' request, the Oath Keepers would in fact be used to impose the same martial law his group ostensibly opposes.

In 2023, Rhodes and another Oath Keepers leader were each sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy for their role in the January 6 insurrection — the most serious charge given to all of the roughly 1,500 defendants. During Rhodes' trial, prosecutors played a recording of him on January 10, 2021 expressing regret that more January 6 participants didn't bring weapons.

"My only regret is that they should have brought rifles," Rhodes said, adding that his group could have "fixed it right then and there" if they were armed. Trump pardoned Rhodes and all other January 6 defendants on the first day of his second term.

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SNOPES 2025

...

Active-duty military members are expressly prohibited from engaging in partisan political activity, which may explain why there are no legitimate surveys of their political leanings. However, surveys of veterans by Gallup and Pew Research found that veterans have long been more likely to lean Republican. In 2024, a Pew Research survey found that 61% of military veterans backed Trump.

:{It is also worth noting that the VoteVets advertisement cited the George Washington University Program on Extremism database to claim that one in seven of the :{people (roughly 14%) charged over the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol had U.S. military backgrounds. However, as of this writing, that number is actually 16.2%, or closer to one in six,}: according to updated data released in 2024 by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, at the University of Maryland....

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Stewart Rhodes Says Trump Must Pardon Him To Correct The 'False Narrative' About The Jan. 6 Insurrection | People For

mma

Stewart Rhodes Says Trump Must Pardon Him To Correct The 'False Narrative' About The Jan. 6 Insurrection

06/04/2025

Kyle Mantyla

:{A few weeks before the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Stewart Rhodes addressed a crowd of MAGA loyalists and far-right activists who had gathered for a rally on the National Mall. :{Rhodes, the founder of the anti-government extremist group the Oath Keepers, had a message for the president: "Show the world who the traitors are, and then use the Insurrection Act to drop the hammer on them.”}:

“He needs to know from you that you are with him, [and] that if he does not do it now while he is commander in chief, we’re going to have to do it ourselves later, in a much more desperate, much more bloody war,” Rhodes threatened.

Following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, Rhodes was eventually found guilty of seditious conspiracy for the role that he and his organization played in fomenting and carrying out the attack, for which he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Upon his return to the Oval Office in 2025, President Donald Trump issued sweeping pardons for nearly every person who had been arrested, charged, or convicted for their roles in the insurrection, but Rhodes was among the few who only received a commutation of his sentence, meaning that he was released from prison but his criminal conviction remains on his record.

Since his release, Rhodes has been pushing to be granted a full pardon, which is reportedly being considered by Trump's far-right pardon attorney, Ed Martin.

Last week, Rhodes appeared on a program hosted by right-wing conspiracy theorist Dave Daubenmire to discuss his situation.

Insisting that Jan. 6 was actually a "manipulated event to manufacture their 'Reichstag fire' moment to distract and to deflect attention from their own coup," Rhodes argued that Trump must issue pardons to him and the others in order to finally correct the "false narrative" about Jan. 6.

"There's 14 of us in total, but they're all Oath Keepers or Proud Boys," Rhodes said of those who received commutations but not pardons. "What that means is your term of prison has ended, it's like time served, your let out but you're still a felon. I'm still a felon. I can't own a gun. I can't vote in Texas. In fact, I lost all my veteran's benefits."

"It's just disgusting," Rhodes continued. "By commuting us only—and we're grateful to be out of prison—but the problem is it helps sustain the false narrative because people seeing us [say], 'Well, they , they didn't get a pardon so they must have really done something wrong.'"

"Now that Ed Martin, thank God, is the new pardon attorney, we've put in pardon applications," he said. "All of us need to be pardoned. I think there's either 11 or 12 of us left who still need a pardon and I would encourage people to support everyone—no man left behind—every one of those guys need to get a pardon."

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no lnx

'Retribution or bust’: Trump's 'Secretary of Retribution' demands mass arrests

Ivan Raiklin takes the stage to speak at a New Hampshire Election Security Seminar presented by the New Hampshire Voter Integrity Group in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S., November 19, 2021.

Jordan Green April 16, 2025

Ivan Raiklin, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who calls himself the “secretary of retribution,” has circulated a so-called “Deep State target list” of President Donald Trump’s political enemies for more than a year now.

Although his promise of spectacular “live-streamed” arrests of hundreds of political figures up to and including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on fancifully concocted charges of treason and other purported violations of law has yet to materialize, Raiklin was able to enlist new allies after Trump vacated the convictions of more than 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants.

Enrique Tarrio and Stewart Rhodes, respectively the former leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, joined Raiklin on an X space on Sunday night to call for retaliatory arrests against those they hold responsible for the Jan. 6 prosecutions.

ALSO READ: Trump, dementia and the duty to warn

The two men were both convicted of seditious conspiracy, with Tarrio serving a 22-year sentence and Rhodes serving an 18-year sentence. Alone among the leadership cadre of the two groups, Tarrio received a full pardon, while Rhodes’s sentence was commuted.

“These are people who have already committed treason,” Raiklin said during the call on Sunday night to discuss retribution against the vast array of government officials who played a role in holding the Jan. 6 insurrectionists accountable. “I’ve seen the evidence. Those that went to January 6th and protested the illegal election knew and saw that these criminals were there.”

Tarrio joined Raiklin in urging Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to start making arrests.

“At what point do we say, ‘Enough'?” Tarrio asked. “At what point does the retaliation, the investigations, the arrests come for these people that wanted to put us in a concrete coffin?”

The FBI declined to comment on this story, and the Department of Justice did not respond to questions submitted through a web form.

But the wide-ranging discussion among Raiklin and his guests on the 99-minute X space revealed deep-seated frustration with Trump administration officials. While Trump promised “retribution” during the campaign, those seeking vindication for their roles in the effort to overturn the 2020 election have found their cause pushed aside during the second administration’s shockwave of new policies, including a global trade war, dismantling the federal government, purging DEI from the military and other institutions, menacing Greenland and the Panama Canal, threatening funding to universities, and disappearing lawful residents.

“I’ve already given up hope on Pam Bondi,” Tarrio said. He added that the recent decision by Patel to promote Steve J. Jensen, former chief of the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Operations Section, to the position of assistant director of the Washington Field Office “does not restore confidence for the American people.”

Tarrio and other pardoned Jan. 6 defendants are unhappy about Jensen’s promotion largely because of the congressional testimony of a former FBI supervisory intelligence analyst who told House Republicans that Jensen once described three individuals targeted for Jan. 6 investigations as “godd--- terrorists.”

Raiklin and Tarrio could not be reached for comment for this story.

The 98-minute discussion on Sunday often veered from the retaliatory arrests that Raiklin emphasized as the focal point.

Listeners complained that they could only hear every other word of Rhodes’ remarks, and the former Oath Keepers leader lamented that his X account had been suspended after he made a post calling for the release of another member held in custody on separate gun charges.

Compared with Raiklin and Tarrio’s remarks, Rhodes’ criticism of the Department of Justice and FBI was relatively mild.

“The more you wait, the more they’re going to destroy evidence,” Rhodes said. “So, you gotta go fast.”

Raiklin expressed the view that the Jan. 6 defendants’ best hope of retaliatory arrests lies with the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Edward R. Martin Jr., a former “Stop the Steal” campaigner.

Martin’s actions have given those who want to see Trump’s political opponents prosecuted some cause for hope.

In February, Martin sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) asking him to clarify comments he made at a March 2024 rally warning that Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh “will pay the price” and “won’t know what hit you if you go through with these awful decisions.” In a subsequent letter, Martin told Schumer: “Your cooperation is more important than ever to complete this inquiry before any action is taken. I remind you: no one is above the law.”

In a letter to another Democratic lawmaker in February, Martin requested that Rep. Robert Garcia (R-CA) clarify his comments on CNN that “the American public wants… us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight” against billionaire Elon Musk.

Martin’s probes prompted 10 lawyers, including four former Jan. 6 prosecutors, to file a letter on Monday requesting that District of Columbia Court of Appeals investigate Martin for potential violations of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct.

“Announcing investigations against his political opponents” and other alleged misconduct, the attorneys argued, “are not worthy of the Department of Justice, undermine the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection of law, and violate Mr. Martin’s professional obligations.”

The attorneys also raised questions about Martin’s representation of Jan. 6 defendant William Pope before Martin was appointed to serve as U.S. attorney. The attorneys cited a court filing by Pope claiming that Martin suggested he request the government’s file in his case. The filing, according to the attorneys, raised questions about whether Martin “potentially gave legal advice to a defendant his office was prosecuting at the time.”

As a prosecutor, Martin has intervened directly on Rhodes’ behalf. In January, Martin successfully filed court papers seeking to overturn a federal judge’s order barring Rhodes and other convicted members of the Oath Keepers from visiting Washington, D.C. without permission. Last month, Martin spoke at a Florida political fundraiser that was attended by four of Rhodes’ Oath Keeper co-defendants, Mother Jones reported.

Asked whether Martin is considering investigating those responsible for the Jan. 6 prosecutions and potentially bringing federal charges, spokesperson Daniel Ball told Raw Story the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia is “unable to confirm or deny the existence of investigations.”

Tarrio and other guests on Raiklin’s X space provided few details on who they believe should be arrested and what crimes they might have potentially committed. Raiklin, meanwhile, outlined a highly technical and legally specious case for targeting Thomas DiBiase, the general counsel for the U.S. Capitol Police, whom he described as “the key individual that weaponized against J6-ers.”

“If we get to him, he can essentially squeal on everyone else, to include the number-one high-value target, Nancy Pig-losi [sic],” Raiklin said.

The U.S. Capitol Police did not respond to an email seeking comment for this story.

On Monday, Raiklin made an X post directed at Bondi, suggesting he wants Trump’s attorney general to rack up an arrest count equivalent to the FBI’s sprawling investigation of the Jan. 6 attack.

“Retribution or bust,” he wrote. “The ball is in your hands. Shot clock ends May 31. 6 weeks remain to conduct ~1500 live-streamed swatting raids of all members of the [Deep State target list].”

But compared to a viral video that garnered 10.3 million views last May when Raiklin’s plan for “livestreamed swatting raids” against his “Deep State target list” first gained notoriety, the recent post issuing an ultimatum to Bondi has garnered paltry results: 9,100 views, 134 re-posts and 21 comments as of late Monday.

The comments from MAGA users suggest Raiklin’s influence is waning.

“What happens on June 1st?” one wrote.

“You are not going to do a god d--- thing! Blah blah blah,” another wrote.

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USATODAY

NO LNX

Freed by Trump, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers plan to sue DOJ

Will Carless

Sudiksha Kochi

USA TODAY

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, de-facto leader of the extremist street gang the Proud Boys, says he wants 'retribution.'

Steward Rhodes, whose Oath Keepers kept an arsenal of weapons across the Potomac River during the assault on the Capitol, said he too plans to sue.

President Trump called the Jan. 6 defendants 'political prisoners' and pardoned or commuted the sentences of 1,600 people after taking office.

WASHINGTON - More than four years after the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the two men federal prosecutors charged as the principal leaders of the riot were back to announce they’re suing the Justice Department.

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, de-facto leader of the extremist street gang the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, founder of the militant anti-government group the Oath Keepers, were joined by several other Jan. 6 defendants at a chaotic roadside press conference in front of the Capitol on Friday.

As counter-protestors chanted insults through bullhorns, Tarrio said he and four other Proud Boys plan to sue the Justice Department for malicious prosecution over their conviction and imprisonment for seditious conspiracy. Last month, President Donald Trump commuted the sentences of Tarrio and Rhodes and pardoned or commuted the sentences of almost 1,600 other Jan. 6 rioters.

Tarrio said he was seeking “retribution” for the years he and his fellow Proud Boys spent in prison.

More:Proud Boys' Enrique Tarrio tells all: Wants accusers to 'feel the heat', weighs sheriff run

“They suffered for three years, and those who made them suffer will pay,” Tarrio said. “That is why today we are announcing a lawsuit against the DOJ for their murders, their lies and the endless suffering they have put us through.”

Tarrio and Rhodes were both convicted of seditious conspiracy for their roles in the storming of the Capitol while legislators certified Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over President Trump. They received sentences of 22 and 18 years respectively. Rhodes said he too will be suing the DOJ in a separate lawsuit, but gave no details.

After the press conference, Tarrio was arrested by Capitol police for allegedly swiping his hand at a protester.

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, former (and possibly current) leader of the far-right group the Proud Boys, appears at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 21, 2025.

How will Trump's DOJ respond to Jan. 6 lawsuits?

Tarrio was joined by fellow Proud Boys Joe Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola, all of whom were imprisoned for their roles in the riot and freed by Trump last month. The five men are all plaintiffs in the coming lawsuit, Tarrio said.

The proposed litigation could set the stage for an extraordinary showdown − or climbdown − between the Jan. 6 convicts and the DOJ.

More:A breakdown of the 187 minutes Trump was out of view on Jan. 6 as aides urged him to act

Ordinarily, the department would quickly swat away such a lawsuit, legal experts told USA TODAY. But in the current administration, they said, it’s unclear what path it will take. Trump has shown consistent support for the Jan. 6 rioters, calling them “political prisoners.”

Trump could order the DOJ to allow the lawsuit to continue, rather than filing motions to have it dismissed, said Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Trump could also order the department to compensate the convicted seditionists, he said.

More:Indiana man pardoned by Trump for Jan. 6 riot is shot and killed by deputy during arrest

“Given that they’ve been convicted, it sounds like a frivolous suit,” Chemerisky said “But could Trump order it be settled? Of course.”

Prosecutors are generally protected from such lawsuits by a host of immunity doctrines, Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said.

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes speaks to the media outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 21, 2025.

“The DOJ could decide to settle the case and pay some damages, but if the DOJ decides to fight it I think they would have some very strong grounds,” he said.

A spokesperson for President Trump told USA TODAY the administration doesn’t comment on hypotheticals and noted that a lawsuit has not yet been filed.

More:Jan. 6 prisoners, including Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, released after Trump pardons, commutations

More Jan 6 lawsuits coming

Rhodes, who led a team of Oath Keepers to the Capitol and whose followers stashed a cache of weapons in a motel room across the Potomac on January 6 for easy access, said he will also file a lawsuit against the DOJ.

Tarrio suggested the Proud Boys could be joined by hundreds more Jan. 6 defendants.

“We do have a lawyer. We'll be announcing that in the coming weeks, but right now, there's the five of us,” he said. “To be honest with you, I think you're gonna see 1,600 people sue the DOJ in one form or another, whether it's class action or personal."

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REF

Proud Boys' Enrique Tarrio tells all: Wants accusers to 'feel the heat', weighs sheriff run

Proud Boys leader strikes cautious tone in first full sit-down with USA TODAY following his pardon by President Trump

Portrait of Will CarlessWill Carless

USA TODAY

MIAMI ― In an exclusive sit-down interview at his home in Miami, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the former − and possibly current − leader of the Proud Boys told USA TODAY he plans to keep influencing the group and said it will continue to have a role in politics moving forward.

Tarrio, who was less than two years into a 22-year federal prison sentence for seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol when President Donald Trump pardoned him on Monday, returned home to Miami on Wednesday and sat down with USA TODAY Friday morning.

The former “Chairman” of the Proud Boys struck a more cautious and less rambunctious tone than in the past in his first interview with a major news organization since his release. He acknowledged that some Jan. 6 rioters attacked police and deserved prosecution, said the Proud Boys have been unfairly miscast as a hate group, and tamped down statements he made on a podcast earlier this week when he called for “retribution” against the people who put him and other Jan. 6 rioters behind bars.

“When I say ‘Feel the heat,’ I want to be clear that I want investigations,” Tarrio said.

Asked what he and the Proud Boys would do to bring “retribution” against those who prosecuted them, if those investigations don’t reveal anything, Tarrio said he would not press the issue further.

“In the case that nothing’s found, I’ll move on to the next thing,” he said.

Henry "Enrique" Tarrio speaks to USA TODAY following his release from prison. He was pardoned by President Donald Trump on Jan. 20, 2025 for his role in the January 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol in 2021. Tarrio is considered the de facto leader of the Proud Boys, an extremist group.

Tarrio, who said he hasn’t spoken with President Donald Trump either before or since his release, was not at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecutors nevertheless cast him as the mastermind of the attack. In the interview, Tarrio maintained his long-stated claim that the insurrection was not organized or planned beforehand.

Prosecutors presented evidence saying Tarrio created a special wing of the Proud Boys called the “Ministry of Self Defense,” which coordinated attacks on the day and celebrated them afterward. “Make no mistake ... we did this,” Tarrio wrote at one point to the group.

On Friday, he cast himself as a victim of a corrupt system that sought to quash freedom of speech and suppress opponents of the political class.

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More:Trump freed Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders. What's next here? | The Excerpt

‘We’re not white supremacists’

Tarrio said it was a mistake to label him as the “former” chairman of the Proud Boys. He said the organization no longer publicly discusses its leadership, but he claimed he has the support of a majority of the Proud Boys.

“I think right now, probably I get along with 60% of my guys,” he said.

The Proud Boys espouse a political ideology of free speech and nationalism, expressed through offensive language, controversial memes and images. A 2021 USA TODAY investigation of the Wisconsin chapter of the group revealed racism and antisemitism, where moving up within the group was dependent on bullying potential members and promoting white supremacist talking points.

Members of the Proud Boys gather in front of the Tennessee State Capitol ahead of a special session on public safety in Nashville, Tennessee on August 21, 2023.

Tarrio said individual chapters of the Proud Boys remain largely autonomous and stressed that they are not under the full control of the national leadership. He acknowledged that white supremacists and other far-right extremists have flocked to the Proud Boys brand, but said that is because the group has been miscast by the media.

“We’re not white supremacists, we’re not Nazis, we’re not anti-semitic,” Tarrio said. “There is no group I do not insult or make a joke about.”

The Proud Boys have been less visible on America’s streets in the four years since the Capitol riot, for which dozens of members of the group were prosecuted, jailed, and now released. Sporadic groups of men wearing the signature black-and-gold Proud Boys colors have shown up everywhere from all-age drag shows to local school board meetings.

‘I’m an equal opportunity offender’

But Tarrio, who describes his heritage as “afro-Cuban,” insisted that the LGBTQ+ community and minorities have nothing to fear from the Proud Boys moving forward.

“I think that probably they should join their local chapter,” he said of members of those groups. “I don’t think that that fear is based on reality. We’ve never targeted specific groups because of their color, sexual orientation or whatnot.”

“I’m an equal opportunity offender,” he said.

Tarrio said the Proud Boys have targeted elements of American culture that they disagree with — like drag shows for all ages, or public officials who openly supported President Biden — but said members of the group would be disavowed if they expressed hatred towards specific races or groups.

The Proud Boys have always supported Trump and will continue to do so, especially considering the pardons that have released their top leadership, Tarrio said. But he said he doesn’t foresee Proud Boys having any role to play, or getting involved with enacting Trump policies.

Proud Boys won’t be out seeking to find immigrants in the country illegally to report to officials, for example, Tarrio said.

“You’ll see them as very boisterous towards those things,” he said. “I have seen some other groups say, ‘We’re going to help them physically deport them,’ but it’s not real. It’s not realistic.”

As for his own future, Tarrio half-joked that he might run to be Miami’s next local sheriff.

“I’m just riffing here, but I run for sheriff, and I win, and it’s sheriff Enrique Tarrio, well — stranger things have happened,” he said.

Will Carless covers extremism and emerging issues nationwide for USA Today.

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Jury Convicts Four Leaders of the Proud Boys of Seditious ...

Department of Justice (.gov)

https://www.justice.gov › archives › opa › jury-convicts...](https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/jury-convicts-four-leaders-proud-boys-seditious-conspiracy-related-us-capitol-breach)

May 4, 2023 — “Today, the Justice Department secured the conviction of four leaders of the Proud Boys for seditious conspiracy related to the January 6th ...

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no lnx

Convicted Oath Keepers' leader now wants to fight 'snitch culture' in the government

Stewart Rhodes

Image via the Collin County Jail.

Sarah Burris,Matt Lasloand Raw StoryFebruary 21, 2025

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD — Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, the founder and former leader of the Oath Keepers, told reporters at CPAC Thursday that he would enjoy working for the FBI or for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

Rhodes, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted of sedition after the January 6 insurrection, had his sentence commuted by President Donald Trump. Now he wants to go to work for the government.

On Thursday, he said that he wants to help more people, who he calls "political prisoners," get out of prison.

"We have a lot of political prisoners in this country, not just J6ers but other people too," he said, noting it is his new crusade to make radical changes to law enforcement.

"I want to see the snitch culture and the entrapment culture at the FBI and DHS changed," he continued. "And until that happens, I feel a little bad about having people join a group where they could be entrapped by a flood of agents."

"I want to see that fixed," he said. "In fact, I could help do that. I want to work for Kash Patel to clean the FBI up or Tulsi Gabbard. So I want to help clean up this corruption in government."

To work for the FBI, "public record must be in good standing with no felony convictions," the agency's website reads.

Rhodes also showed reporters a new tattoo that he got in prison. It features Trump's shooting scene, in which a bullet grazed his ear during a campaign rally.

"I believe that's when he won the election," said Rhodes, noting in that moment, Trump stood up "like a man."

See the videos below or at the link here

www.youtube.com

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HE HAS NAMED FBI? PROSECUTOR CALLED FOR RETALIATION?

GUK 2 25

In his first interview after his release from prison, Enrique Tarrio thanked Donald Trumpfor pardoning him for his role in planning the January 6 riot, saying he “literally gave me my life back”.

Now that he is out, the Proud Boys leader wants revenge, he told Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist host of Info Wars.

“The people who did this, they need to feel the heat, they need to be put behind bars, and they need to be prosecuted,” Tarrio said.

:{:{“Success is going to be retribution,” he added. THEN SAYS THAT RULE DOES NOT APPLY TO HIM?!}:

“We gotta do everything in our power to make sure that the next four years sets us up for the next 100 years.”}:

In the days since the leaders of far-right militia groups were freedfrom prison, they and their organizations are regrouping and figuring out how to build back momentum now that Trump is back in office. They are emboldened by the mass pardons for the insurrectionists and are planning their next moves.

Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, showed up at the US Capitol this week, dining at a Dunkin inside the Longworth House office building. The Associated Press reported that Rhodes “met with at least one lawmaker during his visit and chatted with others” while on Capitol Hill.

He gave interviews outside the DC jail, where he said he wanted prosecutors to be tried for their “crimes”. Rhodes was not pardoned – his sentence was commuted, and he was released early. He wants a full pardon.

Rhodes suggested January 6 should be remembered in history as “patriots day”. He has not expressed regret for his role in the riots, saying his members were entrapped and their responses to police force were understandable. “We were there to protect Trump supporters from Antifa,” he said in a video after his release.

When Rhodes was sentenced in 2023, the judge in his case said: “You are smart, you are charismatic and compelling and frankly that’s what makes you dangerous. The moment you are released, whenever that may be, you will be ready to take up arms against your government.”

Tarrio and Rhodes had some of the longest sentences given to January 6 defendants, at 22 years and 18 years, respectively. Both were charged with seditious conspiracy for their roles helping plan the attack. Members of both the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers infiltrated the Capitol on January 6, and some of them engaged in violence. The Oath Keepers “plotted for months to violently disrupt the peaceful transfer of power” and the Proud Boys “played a central role in setting the January 6 attack on our Capitol into motion”, attorneys for the government said during the cases against group members.

At the time of Tarrio’s sentencing, federal prosecutors said: “No organization put more boots on the ground at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 than the Proud Boys, and they were at the forefront of every major breach of the Capitol’s defenses, leading the on-the-ground efforts to storm the seat of government.”

The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism has tracked Proud Boys’ channels online since Trump’s pardons and seen the group “fantasizing about being ‘deputized as ICE under Trump’s second term’ to aid in Trump’s mass deportation plan” and encouraging members to report people who could be in the country illegally.

Tarrio, often referred to in the media as a “former” or “ex” leader of the Proud Boys, recently said that characterizing him as a former member was not accurate.

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rww

01/27/2025

Peter Montgomery

Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for orchestrating a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol to keep President Donald Trump in power after losing the 2020 election, was on stage at Trump’s rally in Las Vegas this weekend. Rhodes appeared in news photos among people standing behind Trump as the president spoke.

Rhodes was among 14 members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys whose sentences were commuted by Trump on his first day in office, when the president also pardoned more than 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Rhodes had been serving an 18-year sentence.

Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, had repeatedly threatened bloody civil war to keep Trump in power after the 2020 election. He urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act against “domestic traitors.”

On Jan. 6, 2021, the group had stockpiled weapons and stationed a “quick reactionary force” across the river in Virginia. A group of Oath Keepers in a military-style “stack” formation worked their way through the mob and forced their way into the Capitol, with some attacking Capitol Police and others hunting for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. After retreating from the Capitol, Rhodes called someone he believed had access to Trump, urging them to have Trump call on the Oath Keepers and others to fight to keep him in power. That evening, Rhodes sent a message to a Signal chat group saying, “Patriots entering their own Capitol to send a message to the traitors is NOTHING compared to what's coming.”

Rhodes launched Oath Keepers after the election of President Barack Obama. Sam Jackson, author of a book about the Oath Keepers, wrote shortly before the 2020 election that since its founding, the Oath Keepers had “urged its members and supporters to arm themselves and get ready for war.” Right Wing Watch reported in 2017 that Rhodes responded to a church shooting by urging his supporters to prepare for “a wave of left wing terrorism” that could “lead to a full blown civil war.” Back in 2015, Rhodes called for Sen. John McCain to be hanged.

When Rhodes was arrested in 2022, his estranged wife urged the judge not to release him before trial, detailing years of abuse she said Rhodes had inflicted on her and her children. Family members of both the attackers and police officers who were brutalized are reportedly fearful of retaliation from people Trump ordered released and from their supporters. And experts believe Trump’s order could embolden violent extremists.

Vice President J.D. Vance, who recently said that “obviously” those who attacked Capitol Police officers should not be pardoned, is now singing a different tune, and defending Trump’s mass pardons. All Senate Democrats are co-sponsoring a resolution condemning pardons of the insurrectionists who attacked police.

The judge who oversaw Rhodes’ trial has banned Rhodes from entering Washington, D.C without court permission, though Trump officials are seeking to have that restriction overturned. Judge Ahmit Meta had called the prospect of a pardon “frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country.”

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an 1 25

got new eye?

Judge bars freed Oath Keepers founder from visiting DC locations 'without permission from the court'

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proud boys parade at inaug

List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States - Wikipedia

on January 20, 2025, Trump issued roughly 1,500 pardons and 14 commutations to people charged in connection to the January 6 United States Capitol attack.^[109] This included former leader of the Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio and founder of the Oath Keepers Stewart Rhodes.^[110]

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mma

January 22, 2025, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show

STEWART RHODES (OATH KEEPERS FOUNDER): It's frustrating to see anyone say, 'well these people, they assaulted police officers.' Well here's the point I made for some article I did for Gateway Pundit -- is the presumption of innocence in this country means that every single American is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a jury of their peers. That's a fair jury, that's an impartial jury, in a court with an impartial judge. That can't happen in Washington, D.C. They drew the jury pool from the victim pool.

They said all, the judges themselves said, everyone in Washington D.C, all the residents are victims of J6. And the judges even said they themselves were victims. But they insisted on drawing the jury from the victim pool. It's as though you're being charged with robbing a Walmart, and they drew the jury pool from everyone who was in the Walmart on the night of the robbery. You're not going to get an unbiased jury. It's impossible. So, because you had no fair trial, you did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a fair trial, so you should all be still presumed innocent until proven guilty and that's why President Trump was fully justified in pardoning everybody. All of us should be pardoned and almost all were.

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rww

01/16/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Phillip Nieto @ Mediaite: Republican Georgia State Senator Thrown to The Ground And Arrested During Governor’s Speech

Georgia State Senator Colton Moore (R) was arrested at the State Capitol on Thursday while attempting to attend the governor’s State of the State address.

Frederick Clarkson @ Barn Raiser: Pete Hegseth’s War on Religious Freedom and the Constitution

Hegseth is not only a proponent of Christian Nationalism, as it is commonly understood as the fusion of government with conservative Christian values, but an advocate for a revolutionary theocratic vision for the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States.

Robert P. Jones @ White Too Long: Senators Clear the Way for Hegseth's Christian Nationalist Crusade

It’s hard to find strong enough adjectives to describe the unmitigated disaster the senate hearing on the nomination of Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense was. Even the few Republicans who had expressed previous concerns about his nomination handled him with kid gloves.

Angry White Men: Elijah Schaffer: ‘If You Get An Abortion You Should Be Put To Death’

Antisemitic white nationalist Elijah Schaffer appeared on The Baptist Bias — a Rumble show hosted by Christian extremists Jonathan Shelley and Benjamin “Ben the Baptist” Naim. During the show, Schaffer declared that women who have abortions “should be put to death,” and joked about bombing Planned Parenthood facilities.

Dan Friedman and David Corn @ Mother Jones: Inside the RFK Jr.-Alex Jones Bromance

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. set out in late 2021 to hawk a conspiracy theory-drenched book attacking Anthony Fauci for his work to limit the spread of infectious diseases, he ran into a problem. Mainstream TV networks weren’t interested, due to Kennedy’s penchant for spreading falsehoods about childhood vaccinations, Covid, and other topics.

Daniel Bates @ The Daily Beast: Listen to Tulsi Gabbard’s Anti-Gay ‘Guru’ Ranting Hate Against ‘F****ts’

Tulsi Gabbard’s spiritual “guru” called gay people “perverts” and spewed homophobic slurs when she was involved in his tiny group, an audio recording obtained by the Daily Beast reveals.

David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement: Marjorie Taylor Greene Targets Former Biden Official’s Religious Faith in House Hearing

During a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) invoked God and religion to harshly question Martin O’Malley, the former Commissioner of the Social Security Administration and a former Governor of Maryland, about his personal views on abortion and his Catholic faith.

Tim Dickinson @ **Rolling Stone: The Oath Keepers Are Back — and Targeting America’s Youth

The infamous paramilitary group has a new honcho, and designs to influence cops, politicians, and the Boy Scouts.

ref RS

no lnx pix

The Oath Keepers Are Back — and Targeting America’s Youth

The infamous paramilitary group has a new honcho, and designs to influence cops, politicians, and the Boy Scouts

By Tim Dickinson

January 16, 2025

An Oath Keeper member in front of the Supreme Court on January 5, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

The Oath Keepers are back. And leaked documents suggest the group is trying to rebuild its brand by targeting youth, and in particular the Boy Scouts.

The infamous paramilitary organization has been in disarray since the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, was arrested, charged, and convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the events of Jan. 6 — which included positioning armed “quick reaction” strike forces across the river from Washington, D.C., in hopes of participating in a Donald Trump-sanctioned campaign of violence. Rhodes is currently serving 18 years (that is, unless Trump decides to include him in his pardons for the Jan. 6 “hostages”).

The Oath Keepers now have a new brand, Oath Keepers USA, and a new leader named Bobby Kinch, a retired Las Vegas police officer who once gained infamy for making Facebook posts that appeared to call for a race war.

These days, Kinch lives in the mountains of Southwest Utah, and adds a populist topspin to dark visions of impending tyranny: “It doesn’t matter what your political persuasion; because if you’re not one of the wealthy elites, if you’re not one of the Davos, globalist, Marxist, progressive billionaires,” he said on a recent podcast, “you’re going to be in the same box car as everybody else.”

Kinch’s name has become nationally notable following the recent publication by ProPublica of an account by a “mole,” a wilderness survival guide named John Williams who reportedly infiltrated paramilitary groups in Utah. He primarily targeted a Three Percenter militia, but also got close to the Oath Keepers and Kinch.

Leaked documents that Williams first made available to ProPublica can now be downloaded at an anti-secrecy site called Denial of Distributed Secrets, which has a history of exposing Oath Keepers. The group previously provided to journalists a membership roster for the Oath Keepers that included many sheriffs, police, NRA honchos, politicians, and other prominent members of mainstream society.

In reality, Kinch has not been underground, but rather under the radar outside of Utah, where he became locally controversial this past summer over a speaking engagement.

Rolling Stone identified several podcast episodes, two of them self-produced, where Kinch spoke openly of his rise to lead the revamped Oath Keepers USA, as well as his views about impending violent conflicts. The substance of the podcasts has not previously been reported.

We also reviewed leaked strategy and documents that appear to lay out the Oath Keepers’ plans for growth and reinvention — including forging tighter ties with law enforcement and building rapport with the Boy Scouts. Efforts to reach Kinch through the Oath Keepers website, emails, Signal, LinkedIn, and Venmo have not been successful.

Who Is Bobby Kinch?

Kinch is in his mid-fifties. He has a salt-and-pepper goatee, and a preference for trucker hats and hoodies. His brown eyes flare intently as he discusses his views on politics. In a February 2024 podcast with the Modern Frontiersman, Kinch discussed how he served in the Air Force during the first Gulf War era, and was ultimately stationed near Las Vegas to work on the F-117 Nighthawk stealth-fighter-jet program.

Kinch recalled leaving the military in 1993 and getting hired as a Las Vegas cop, serving until 2016. In Vegas, Kinch became notorious for a series of inflammatory posts on Facebook, including one in which he posted: “Let’s just get this over! Race war, Civil, Revolution? Bring it! I’m about as fed up as a man (American, Christian, White, Heterosexual) can get!” In another post citing the decayed “morale fabric” of the country, Kinch wrote: “I wanna call it! GAME ON! I think we need a cleansing!”

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an 5 23

with Oath Keeper leader Stewart Rhodes cooling his heels in jail while awaiting a possible 25-year sentence for his plot to storm Congress on January 6th, 2021 in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election that Donald Trump lost, the remaining members of the rightwing militia aremoving on with their lives. guk?

According to a report from the Guardian's MacKenzie Ryan, new membership in the group is essentially non-existent and the Oath Keepers' future is in doubt.

As Ryan notes, "Researchers who monitor American far-right organizations said theOath Keepers have in effect been decimated, with only a handful of chapters remaining."

Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director of research and analysis for the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) claimed the 100-plus chapters of Oath Keepers have dwindled to a "handful," and quipped, "I can tell you I don’t see as many Oath Keeper bumper stickers around."

Rivas noted the arrest and jailing of Rhodes was the beginning of the end for Oath Keepers, by suggesting Rhodes’ conviction was akin to "cutting off the head of the dragon” and that, in turn, has crippled their ability to add to their ranks.

She explained, "When something happens like January 6, when things get out of hand, it pushes the everyday membership away from the organization itself, not from its beliefs, but it definitely pushed them away from the Oath Keepers’ name.”

Warren Siegel, vice-president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, was more pointed in his remarks about the demise of the right-wing militia, telling the Guardian, "How do you win hearts and minds in this country? There is no fairytale ending to an insurrection.”

You can read more her

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https://www.alternet.org/oath-keepers-2658957735/

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https://boingboing.net/2022/12/03/seditious-conspirator-stewart-rhodes-wife-and-eldest-son-on-how-they-went-about-escaping-him.html

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For THE WITNESS: 17 18 DAVID OLIVAS 19 Olivas Law PLLC 20 3300 Oak Lawn Ave. 21 Dallas, Texas 75219

michael l simmons

From Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm 38 this year. Educational background, I 9 graduated from high school. Went to college for 2 years. And then I took some 6 10 courses, like some security course work. And I went to a -- a -- explosive school down in 11 Tennessee. I mean, other than that, like, I just -- I try to -- I try to take light courses to 12 further my career field. 13 Q And, when you say "security," is it like actual classic personal security type 14 stuff or like cybersecurity? What type of security are you taking classes for? 15 A Well, I do executive protection, but I was going to college for cybersecurity 16 stuff for 2 years, and then I went back into security work. triple canopy?

...

this -- you know, it -- the chick getting shot. Mike calls a bunch of veterans to rise up 2 against what was going on in the government. You know, shit like that. 3 And then, you know, they were talking about other stuff that was going on around the country. Like, apparently, at the same time the Capitol got hit, some other State's capitol got hit, same time, same kind of way, or something like that. And so they were 6 talking about how they might try to say it was an organized attack and stuff. 7 And, you know, again, Josh is sitting at the table with us. You know, Josh is kind of quiet and reserved, but, you know, he's doing the Josh thing. You know, didn't 9 mention at all he went in the Capitol. Kelly's having phone conversations with people. 10 And, you know, just ate and left. 11 Q So you met with the 1AP guys that night atOlive Garden eating? 12 A Yeah, we met -- it was a couple 1AP guys there. 13

Q What were they -- I guess, were they talking about that they had gone in the Capitol? Or what were they talking about? 15 A No. They were just talking about, like, you know, how the veteran lady [ashli babbit] getting shot might cause a spark amongst veterans against the stuff that was going on in the country and stuff like that, and a Black man. You know, just people's opinion about, you know, what was going on. 19 But, you know, nobody talked about running in the Capitol. You know, nobody mentioned they went in the Capitol. And, again, Josh is sitting right next to damn Landon. He said nothing about going in the Capitol. Like, golly. But, you know what I mean?

When we left dinner, get back to the hotel, Kellyepulls -- like, Kellye drove up to the hotel. She was so frantic. And she was like, hey, you know they're looking for people. They're gonna come and -- you know, the police or whoever's gonna come and grab people. You know, they're looking for people. And she went way so far left field that she was talking about how they were gonna do drone strikes on me and my family. Told me I need to go home and move my people out. Like, Jesus Christ. And so everybody left. And she was still ranting and raving. And it was just, you know -- I just casually collected my stuff, filled up my gas tank, and got on the road.

Q What was Mr. Rhodes's mood like on the night of January 6th? I mean, he was -- you know, no changes. Just, you know, Stewart. You know, talking about, you know, this could be a spark of the revolution. And, you know, 9 like, people are gonna start to talk about, you know -- because, like, remember, like, all 10 the other capitols got hit -- and he's like, people are gonna start to talk about how this 11 might be a planned attack. And he was like, I just think it's patriots being upset about 12 what's going on. And stuff like that. You know, just Stewart. 13 Q I guess I have to ask you: Like, he's talking about a revolution. Like, there 14 was just a violent day at the Capitol. I'm just trying to understand, because it seems like 15 you're not attached to this at all, like, what are you thinking. Like, let's just say you 16 leave, right, to go back and you call someone as a friend; like, what do you say about 17 what just happened and the dinner you just left? 18 A I mean, it's -- I mean -- I mean -- same kind of stuff you'd say. Vo, man, 19 look, this shit was crazy, man. Like, you know what I mean? These people just ran up 20 in the Capitol. Like -- so, you know, it was conversations like that, you know. 21 But, like, me listening to Stewart talk about stuff like that, like, to me it was just 22 Stewart talking about stuff. You know what I mean? So, like, that didn't move me too 23 much. 24 But, like, the events that happened? Yeah, like, I've never seen anything like that 25 in the United States. You know what I mean? Now, like, you know, I wasn't real...

---

===

watkins

https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/oath-keeper/ct outburst

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11/22/22 1:13 PM EST

Dinesh D'Souza defends the Oath Keepers

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/report/conspiracy-theorists-with-badges-and-guns-pro-trump-sheriffs-vow-to-police-elections/

An Unholy Alliance of Election Deniers, ‘Constitutional Sheriffs,’ and Profiteering Propagandists Threatens Elections

Two years after former President Donald Trump began aggressively attacking the integrity of the 2020 election to justify his efforts to stay in power, an unholy alliance threatens the fair conduct of elections this fall and again in 2024. A national network of conspiracy theorists and right-wing political operatives have been joined by far-right sheriffs, whose determination has been fortified by lies about election fraud and fueled by a belief that they are waging a holy war against the forces of evil.

Richard Mack, a former Arizona county sheriff and former board member of the anti-government extremist organization Oath Keepers, summoned members and supporters of his Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association to a July gathering in Las Vegas, where he delivered an urgent message: The country’s county sheriffs, Mack said, must launch investigations into voting fraud in the 2020 election—investigations that he thought could put Trump back in power.

“I would love for the investigations to prove that he indeed won the election, and I think at the time the Supreme Court would have to rule that he gets put back in because it was based on criminal activity,” Mack said. Though he wasn’t sure enough sheriffs would step up and “do their duty” to make investigations into the 2020 election happen, Mack urged sheriffs to take an active role in policing this year’s elections.

Mack is the founder and leader of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which teaches local sheriffs that they are the supreme law enforcement officer in their counties, and that it is their duty to resist state and federal “tyranny.”

Mack and other MAGA-minded sheriffs like Mark Lamb turned their focus to policing elections after seeing “2000 Mules,” a film produced by right-wing propagandist Dinesh D’Souza and True the Vote leaders Catherine Englebrecht and Gregg Phillips, longtime promoters of election fraud conspiracy theories. Experts from across the political spectrum debunked the movie’s claims about voter fraud, but Trump and many of his supporters have embraced and promoted its inflammatory claims.

The Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol and evidence gathered by the House select committee investigating the insurrection have provided clear evidence that lies about election fraud can drive people to violence. In the weeks before Election Day, the embrace of “2000 Mules” and its inflammatory claims by public officials and far-right activists has already led to multiple reports of armed voter intimidation by vigilantes at ballot drop boxes. It could also increase the potential for violence at the polls.

“The involvement of ‘people with guns and badges’ to intimidate voters, and attempts to access voting equipment, could become ‘go-to-tactics,’” Bulwark editor Charlie Sykes told Reuters. “It doesn’t feel hyperbolic to say this is extremely dangerous.”

Armed Enforcers for the Anti-Democracy Coalition?

Mack founded CSPOA in 2009, a period of far-right ferment after the election of former President Barack Obama. As a leader of the self-described “constitutional sheriffs” movement, he has painted the federal government as authoritarian, referring to federal agencies as “the gestapo” and suggesting there were “some startling and irrefutable comparisons between Barack Obama and Adolph Hitler.”

Mack became a right-wing folk hero when he successfully challenged a Clinton-era federal gun law in the mid-90s. In 2014, Mack was back in the spotlight when he joined Cliven Bundy’s armed standoff with federal officials promoted a public relations strategy of putting women up front if shooting started.

Political scientists Emily Farris and Mirya Hollman recently conducted a survey of sheriffs’ attitudes and concluded that “Mack’s group has successfully radicalized a generation of sheriffs to believe that the office has seemingly unlimited power and autonomy.” That attitude is particularly dangerous among sheriffs, who compared to other law enforcement officials often have little structural oversight and accountability.

“We can and must take America back county by county and state by state,” Mack wrote in his 2014 book, “Are You a David?” That message is central to his current organizing efforts and one that he delivers to sheriffs and other law enforcement officials, often in state-sanctioned training sessions.

After the release of “2000 Mules” in May, Mack began shifting CSPOA’s focus from training sheriffs about his view of their constitutional superpowers to urging them to mobilize against “voter fraud.” He has described the movie’s oft-debunked claims as “overwhelming” and “compelling” evidence and said that “every sheriff and every chief of police in this country should be following up with a criminal investigation on the claims made in ‘2000 Mules.’”

Richard Mack speaks at CSPOA press conference on election fraud.

While Mack claims that his “2000 Mules”-inspired “election integrity” efforts are nonpartisan— he declared in a July press release that he simply wanted to know whether the claims made in “2000 Mules” are true and called for “honest, professional, and independent investigations”—it’s clear where his support lies when speaking to right-wing audiences. On a right-wing radio show in July, he called Trump’s defeat “a horrible, heinous crime” and “one of if not the worst crime committed against the American people in the last 100 years.”

“This is a coup against the American people,” Mack declared during a September appearance on another radio show. He recently told listeners of the right-wing Liberty Monks podcast that they “must vote for any Republican that we possibly can” to “punish the Democratic Party” and “stand against the destruction of America.”

Other sheriffs have taken up Mack’s call to investigate the 2020 presidential election and police future elections. One of Mack’s allies, Sheriff Calvin Hayden of Johnson County, Kansas, has “promoted unsubstantiated suspicions of election fraud,” according to the Kansas City Star. Hayden also offered to have his staff collect ballots from drop boxes, a move rejected by local officials as an attempt to interfere with the election.

Mack has also backed Dar Leaf, a sheriff in Berry County, Michigan, who is under investigation by the state’s attorney general over the conduct of his investigation of election equipment. Leaf has been represented by an attorney who was sanctioned by a federal judge for her role in Sidney Powell’s legal efforts to overturn the election results. Turning the system of governance on its head, Mack has said Leaf has the right to arrest state officials who interfered with his investigation.

From Insurrection to Elections: Sheriff Mark Lamb and Protect America Now

Mack isn’t the only far-right law enforcement official who was fired up by “2000 Mules.” Mark Lamb, sheriff of Arizona’s Pima County, was also drawn in by True the Vote’s conspiracy fraud claims. After viewing an interview that right-wing activist Charlie Kirk did with Engelbrecht—an interview that has been viewed more than 2 million times—Lamb contacted Englebrecht and brought his Protect America Now organization into a formal partnership with True the Vote.In October, Mack met with the Arizona Oathkeepers to talk about “election integrity” and the partnership being between Lamb and True the Vote, the Arizona Mirror reported.

An admirer of Mack and the CSPOA, Lamb built a national following through reality TV shows before turning energy toward Trumpian politics and the promotion of false voter fraud claims with the launch of his own organization in 2021.

Lamb founded Protect America Now in the month following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The insurrection, Lamb said, was not Trump’s fault, adding, “I don’t know how loud we have to get before they have to listen to us and know we will no longer tolerate them stripping our freedoms away.”

Describing Lamb as “charismatic and ambitious” in a 2021 profile, Politico reported that at ananti-vaccine rally that year, Lamb told supporters, “We’re going to find out what kind of patriots you are. We’re going to find out who is willing to die for freedom.”

Protect America Now’s website declares, “We support Sheriffs and law enforcement members that believe inGod, Family and Freedom.” The group asks for a monthly donation of $17.76 to “help us win this battle for the soul of America.” It promotes a hard-right line on immigration and other issues. In videos on Protect America Now’s YouTube channel, Lamb that crime is running rampant and “liberals want to take our guns.” In another, Lamb, “together, we are fighting back against the liberal takeover.”

In June, True the Vote and Protect America Now announced ProtectAmerica.Vote, a partnership that it said would “empower sheriffs” to “support election integrity” and would bridge the gap between voters and law enforcement to “ensure we have secure elections in this country.”

Engelbrecht has said she embraced the sheriffs after the FBI dismissed True the Vote’s allegations of voter fraud. “It’s like the lights went on,” she saidat a CSPOA event this July. “It’s the sheriffs. That’s who can do these investigations; that’s who we can trust; that’s who we can turn over information to.” True the Vote says its partnership with the constitutional sheriffs will include raising grant money and providing equipment to sheriffs to expand ballot drop box surveillance and investigate fraud claims.

Lamb claims his partnership with True the Vote is a nonpartisan effort, but he makes no secret of his support for Trump and Trump’s stolen election claims. Trump “loves the rule of law,” Lamb said at a Trump rally in Arizona this July. “We’re gonna make sure that we have election integrity this year,” Lamb pledged. “We will not let happen what happened in 2020.”

Local critics say Lamb has politicized law enforcement. Pinal County, where Lamb is sheriff, experienced ballot shortages during the August primary, and Lamb, true to character, that there might be something more at play than incompetence by election officials and vowed to investigate.

Inspired by Lies: ‘2000 Mules’ as Political Warfare

Right-wing filmmaker and author D’Souza describes his propaganda movies as weapons of political and spiritual warfare. By that measure, the “2000 Mules” movie has proven itself effective in mobilizing Trump’s troops.

Far-right wing media have boosted Dinesh D’Souza’s “2000 Mules” even though its claims have been widely debunked.

In “2000 Mules,” D’Souza dramatized claims made by Engelbrecht and Phillips that liberal nonprofits had mobilized “ballot harvesting” operations to stuff drop boxes with illegal votes. But for all the wild hype about their use of mobile device geolocation data and security camera footage from ballot drop boxes, election experts have repeatedly said that there’s essentially no there there. Even former Trump administration Attorney General William Barr dismissed the movie’s claims as laughable in testimony before the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The movie’s claims have also been declared bogus by experts in cell phone tracking technology and by election officials. As critics have pointed out, despite all the data, footage, and money available to the producers, the film does not show a single documented instance of the kind of fraud it claims to expose. Georgia election officials tracked down one person the movie accused of being a “mule” and determined that the person was depositing his own ballot and his family members’ ballots, as permitted by law. On Oct. 26, a Georgia voter sued D’Souza, Englebrecht, Phillips, and True the Vote for wrongly accusing him of casting illegal votes.

Among the other demonstrably false claims in the movie was that True the Vote’s geolocation data was so accurate that it helped solve a murder case.

But MAGA world activists primed to believe Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories ate it up. Trump himself hosted a premiere for the film at Mar-a Lago in May. Many Republican officials and proponents of election conspiracies like MyPillow founder Mike Lindell have joined Trump in promoting the film and its claims.

As the film took MAGA world by storm, it came to the attention of far-right militias, too. It was cited by Lions of Liberty, an Arizona “preparedness” group connected to the far-right Oath Keepers that is organizing armed surveillance of ballot boxes, and by Matt Shea, a far-right former state legislator known for his handbook on “biblical warfare,” who is organizing similar efforts in his state.

The release of the book version of “2000 Mules” was delayed at the last minute by the publisher after it had been printed and sent to bookstores containing potentially libelous accusations against several nonprofit groups it accused of mobilizing voter fraud. Before a toned-down version was released, Engelbrecht and Phillips distanced themselves from the book, saying they were looking ahead to future elections and their work with sheriffs.

Before ‘2000 Mules’: True the Vote’s History of Election Fraud Conspiracies

True the Vote is well known among voting rights experts for its long history of promoting voter fraud conspiracy theories and supporting actions to restrict voting.

“True the Vote and groups like it are well-documented voter intimidation scams,” former Harris County Clerk and current Houston mayoral candidate Chris Hollins told Texas Monthly this summer. “They’re created to amplify conspiracy theories, funded by wealthy right-wing activists, to tie the hands of election administrators and embolden partisan poll watchers.”

Sean Morales-Doyle of the Brennan Center points to True the Vote’s “long history of anti-voter conduct, including orchestrating mass challenges to voters,” some as recent as the 2021 Georgia runoff elections.

True the Vote leaders Engelbrecht and Phillips—business and reportedly romantic partners—have profited from unproven claims of voter fraud. The organization has been the subject of multiple investigations and exposés revealing their repeated failure to make good on outlandish claims while funneling money raised by their nonprofit group into their own pockets via loans and payments to for-profit companies they run.

True the Vote was founded after the 2008 election and grew out of a local Tea Party organization in Houston, Texas, called the King Street Patriots, which was accused of conducting “1960s style” voter intimidation during the 2010 election cycle.

For the past decade, True the Vote has promoted alarmism about voter fraud and resisted voting rights protections. It falsely claimed, for example, that the Obama administration was intentionally registering noncitizens to vote and charged that renewing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would encourage “race-based segregation.” As “voter fraud” and “election integrity” became right-wing justifications for voter suppression, True the Vote pulled in money from right-wing funders and activist groups, including the Bradley Foundation, Donors Trust, the Judicial Confirmation Network, and State Policy Network.

True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrecht railed against a bill she said would “blow up our elections” in a March 2020 YouTube video.

When Trump was elected in 2016 while losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, Phillips stroked Trump’s ego by claiming that Phillips could verify that 3 million noncitizens cast votes in the election. While Trump touted the baselessand repeatedly debunked claim that he was the actual popular vote winner, True the Vote never released any evidence to back him up.

Though True the Vote claims that its so-called “election integrity” work is nonpartisan, the group aggressively promotes the interests of right-wing Republican candidates. In 2018, a New Jersey judge decided not to renew a 1981 ban on the Republican Party recruiting soldiers and cops as poll watchers to intimidate Black voters. True the Vote saw this as an opportunity. At a 2020 gathering of the Council for National Policy, a secretive network of influential right-wing and far-right leaders, Englebrecht touted True the Vote’s “Continue to Serve” initiative, which she said would recruit retired military and law enforcement as poll watchers. One participant suggested it would be especially useful in “inner city” and Native American precincts.

True the Vote’s credibility has been challenged by some on the right, even by other Big Lie and voter suppression advocates. After Trump’s defeat in 2020, True the Vote officials took $2.5 million from Fred Eshelman, a Trump-supporting billionaire who believed that the group was going to use state-level election data to prove Trump’s fraud claims in court. When they seemingly did little more to overturn the election than pay piles of cash to their companies and their lawyer, right-wing movement consigliere James Bopp, for a few short-lived lawsuits, Eshelman sued in an unsuccessful effort to get his money back.

Conspiracy Theories as Spiritual Warfare

Just as Christian nationalist ideology and the belief that keeping Trump in office was a sacred cause energized the Jan. 6 insurrection and suffused much of the MAGA movement, True the Vote’s leaders and their far-right sheriff allies rely on spiritual warfare rhetoric to justify their actions and motivate their followers.

Before the 2020 election, True the Vote partnered with Intercessors for America, a group of pro-Trump “prayer warriors,” to spread right-wing talking points about the threat of voter fraud. On an online prayer call in May 2020, Englebrecht called the struggle over expanded voting by mail a “spiritual battle” for “control of the free world.”

After the release of “2000 Mules,” Intercessors for America claimed that the movie documented “an indisputable and alarming gravy train for fraudulent votes.” Intercessors for America defended Engelbrecht and Phillips from critics, portraying them as victims of persecution.

This August, True the Vote held a gathering focused on voter fraud that it called “The Pit,” a name taken from a biblical passage that says God will grant his disciples relief from days of trouble “until a pit is dug for the wicked.” On a “prayer call” promoting the event,Intercessors for America’s Kris Kubalsaid that election fraud is “demonic” and an “evil from Satan.” True the Vote, she declared, was involved in a “supernatural battle.” Phillips agreed that “there is so much evil around all of this right now.”

“God wants us to expose that pit and shut it down, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Engelbrecht said. True the Vote leaders did not release compelling new evidence of voter fraud at “The Pit,” but they did announce the creation of a “fusion center” that would gather “actionable intelligence” for local sheriffs to act on.

Like Engelbrecht and Phillips, Mack portrays his “constitutional sheriff” movement and its involvement in election issues in spiritual terms. In his 2014 book, “Are You a David?” Mack argued that “modern-day Davids”—by which he meant sheriffs and other local public servants—are “the only viable solution for the restoration of our God-given rights, in conjunction with our willingness to repent and return to God’s law as a people.” At a July press conference Mack organized during the right-wing “Freedom Fest” held in Las Vegas, he urged sheriffs to “join us in this holy cause.”

Sheriffs: The Law or a Threat to the Law?

There is a long history in this country of corrupt local sheriffs abusing their power, from Jim Clark leading attacks on civil rights marchers in Alabama in the 1960s to Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva overseeing a department notorious for violent deputy gangs threatening public safety today.

In 2020, the research group Political Research Associates identified 136 sheriffs aligned with the far-right “patriot” and militia movement in which Political Research Associates situates Mack’s CSPOA. The research group noted that at the time, 90 percent of the 3,081 county sheriffs in the United States were white men, and that “there has been a concerted effort in the last decade to mobilize sheriffs toward further supporting and expanding systems of racialized social control and expulsion.” The Reflective Democracy Campaign, a project of the Women’s Donor Network, noted that “The alarmingly skewed demographics of sheriffs suggest a system hard-wired for abuse, and their track record of mistreating women and people of color confirms it.”

Some sheriff’s offices have connections to, or have been infiltrated by, other far-right extremist groups. The Brennan Center found that sheriff’s deputies in Washington state and Louisiana had publicly supported and joined the Proud Boys—whose leaders have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the attack on the Capitol—and noted that a sheriff’s deputy in Orange County, California, was photographed wearing a patch that included the word “Oath Keeper” and the logo of the Three Percenters on his bulletproof vest. The Washington state and Louisiana deputies were fired; the California deputy was not.

Added to this already toxic mix are messages from the likes of Mack and Lamb that sheriffs must investigate electoral fraud. Such declarations are a “significant overreach of authority,” David Mahoney, a former president of the National Sheriffs Association, told The Guardian.

So what role, if any, should sheriffs play in our elections?

“There is a critical role for law enforcement to play in protecting our election: they should be offering protection to election officials and election workers that have come under attack as a result of lies being spread by groups like True the Vote,” the Brennan Center’s Sean Morales-Doyletold The Guardian in August.

It is not difficult to imagine the chilling effect of being accused of voter fraud by a person with a badge and gun, what Jessica Pishko called “part of an escalating campaign to police the vote” in a recent story for Bolts magazine. “The prospect of increased involvement of armed officers recalls the days of voter intimidation in the Jim Crow South (and beyond), and could also help encourage extremist vigilante violence by perpetuating baseless rumors of fraud, often against Black and Latinx communities,” Pishko wrote.

Recent reports of armed bands gathering at ballot drop boxes and challenging voters suggests that Pishko was right. (This week a federal court ordered a group in Arizona to stop intimidating voters with their armed and body-armored presence at ballot drop boxes.) [check]

The multi-faceted campaign to corrupt elections by convincing millions of Americans that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump by Black and Brown voters is a threat to democracy. It has created and inflamed a large group of enraged Trump supporters and sparked harassment and threats against election officials. It has led to a wave of state laws designed to restrict registration and voting. It has led to Trumpist partisans and conspiracy theorists becoming poll workers and running for political offices where they will have the power to interfere with the administration of elections. And it has led some armed vigilantes to set up intimidating “security” operations at voting locations.

Added to this volatile mix are groups of sheriffs riled up by falsehoods and propaganda, pumped up an ideology of virtually unchecked power, and spurred on by the belief that they are engaged in a holy war to save America from destruction. Voters and other public officials must be alert to the abuses that could flow from these new partnerships and be prepared to hold individuals accountable for any actions to intimidate or interfere with people exercising their right to vote.

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https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy7wvj/lions-of-liberty-oath-keepers-midterm-ballot-boxes

Armed Fringe Groups Are Gearing Up to ‘Protect’ Midterm Ballot Dropboxes

The groups, inspired by conspiracy theories and the Big Lie about the 2020 election, could deter some voters, experts warn.

By Tess Owen

October 6, 2022Screenshot of a YCPT meeting in August led by Jim Arroyo

A “patriot group” in Arizona called Lions of Liberty—which is closely tied to the Oath Keepers—is organizing their supporters to go out and conduct round-the-clock surveillance of ballot dropboxes during the midterm elections. It’s the latest sign that groups with clear ties to extremists, galvanized by conspiracy theories, are seeking to take matters into their own hands this election season.

Ballot dropboxes have become the central focus of election fraud conspiracy theorists, thanks to the debunked documentary 2,000 Mules, by right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza.

That film claims that a shadowy network of hired “mules” in contested states were hired by nonprofits as part of a giant ballot trafficking operation to stuff dropboxes with fake absentee ballots, all with the goal of stealing the 2020 election from Donald Trump. The film was released in May, six months before the midterms, reinvigorated the “Stop the Steal” movement and inspired vigilante efforts around the country—in some cases spearheaded by innocuous-sounding groups that obscure the known ideologues and extremists behind them.

Lions of Liberty is the “political arm” of a newly-formed nonprofit called Yavapai County Preparedness Team (YCPT), led by the former vice president of Arizona’s Oath Keeper chapter, Jim Arroyo. At a meeting in August that was posted to YouTube, Arroyo explained that they had turned the Oath Keeper chapter into a corporate nonprofit under the name of YCPT, which in turn gave them the ability to get a bank account.

In an email to VICE News, Arroyo said that the Arizona chapter officially broke ties with the national leadership of the notorious militia group after it was implicated in the violent riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6. (Five members are currently standing trial for seditious conspiracy charges, including the group’s leader Stewart Rhodes. Prosecutors allege that Rhodes and his cohort plotted an “armed rebellion to shatter a bedrock of American democracy.”) However, they had been operating more or less independently from the national organization for about four years, said Arroyo; Rhodes broke ties with the Arizona contingent after they declined to assist in armed vigilante activities at the border, out of respect for Border Patrol.

News

The Oath Keepers’ Jan. 6 Texts Sure Do Look Damning

GREG WALTERS

10.05.22

Arroyo, who insists YCPT is not a militia, led that August meeting in an Oath Keepers hat and T-shirt. He explained to the crowd that he would need volunteers to monitor ballot drop boxes, and that he was particularly concerned about the period between midnight and 6 a.m. “If you saw the movie 2,000 Mules” he said, that timeframe was “when the bulk of the problems happen, that’s when we will be on scene with a camera and flashlight.” Arroyo told VICE News that some volunteers might be armed. “This is Arizona; almost everyone is armed, all the time,” he said. “That's not a big deal here.”

Arroyo said he will likely pick up a couple of shifts to monitor dropboxes.

In the August meeting, Arroyo assured members of the crowd that they’d be welcome to continue wearing their Oath Keepers merch, even while conducting ballot dropbox surveillance. “Your shirts and hats are what tell the world you’re not ashamed to be an Oath Keeper, or afraid of the government just because of that crap that happened on January the 6th, which was completely staged. It was a setup,” Arroyo said, before acknowledging, “Yeah, they did something stupid beyond all belief.”

During the meeting, Arroyo also stoked fears of an imminent civil war. “This is not the same as (Black Lives Matter) and George Floyd or antifa. This is a direct confrontation with the federal government,” he said. “This is now the federal government of the United States of America in direct conflict with its own citizenry.”

The Lions of Liberty describe themselves as a “resolute nucleus of concerned, passionate conservative patriots who are determined to correct the course for our country which has been hijacked and undermined by global elites, communists, leftists, deep state bureaucrats, and fake news.” Their goal? “To bring God back to our leadership and win this spiritual battle for the soul of our nation.”

The Lions of Liberty aren’t the only ones calling for and coordinating vigilante activity around the midterm elections.

Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a Seattle-based nonprofit, has been closely tracking this trend.

“The threat of groups of far-right vigilantes, some potentially armed, fueled by Big Lie misinformation, lurking near ballot dropboxes, could potentially deter some from casting their votes,” warned Burghart. “The possibility of conflict in such a scenario is real.”

Burghart added that “dropbox vigilantism” perpetuates unsubstantiated claims of rampant voter fraud that “keep the Big Lie alive and further erodes confidence in elections and democracy.”

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Former Washington state Rep. Matt Shea runs On Fire Ministries, an apocalyptic Christian nationalist church in Spokane, and has been leading “training sessions” for prospective volunteers to monitor dropboxes.

“We are doing something for the community. How many of you watched 2,000 Mules? Raise your hands,” said Shea during a service in September. “I think it would be good if we had some folks who were certified, trained, dropbox observers, in Spokane County.” The training took place on Sept. 30.

Shea is a particularly controversial character; a 2019 investigation by the Washington Legislature concluded that he’d “participated in an act of domestic terrorism” for his involvement in three armed conflicts against the federal government between 2014 and 2016, including the Bundys’ armed standoffs in Nevada and Oregon and an armed conflict with the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department in Priest River, Idaho.

And a group called True the Vote, which was involved in the 2,000 Mules documentary, is also teaming up with the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) to monitor dropboxes nationwide. CSPOA is headed by Richard Mack, who has long-standing ties to the militia movement, including to the Oath Keepers.

“The plan from national Big Lie groups, like True the Vote, is to use those “voter fraud” claims to get sympathetic sheriffs to intervene in elections,” said Burghart.

Dropbox surveillance efforts started getting underway earlier this summer, during the primaries, described then by the New York Times as a “nascent” movement. In some places, like in Arizona, groups were planning dropbox “tailgate parties.” One person with a handle referencing QAnon posted a photo of their party to Trump’s platform Truth Social, and credited Seth Keshel, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer and conspiracy theorist, for the idea.

[Screenshot from the app TruthSocial showing a "dropbox tailgate party"

Brian Cates, a columnist for the fringe-right publication The Epoch Times, has long been a proponent of the “Big Lie” and has been riling up his more than 120,000 followers on Telegram around the idea of taking matters into their own hands this election season.

“The time for calling for people to just show up to vote is long past. We’re moving into another completely different era,” he wrote. “Citizens will be given the tools to monitor all the dropboxes and engage in massive real-time information operations in order to bring about election integrity.”

“Forewarned is forearmed,” he added. “An army of patriots is going to force compliance with the election laws in their states before these next elections are held.”

One of the primary examples of “evidence” of nefarious activity offered by 2,000 Mules was surveillance videos that appeared to show individuals posting multiple ballots into a dropbox, including in Georgia. Submitting multiple ballots on behalf of other people is known as “ballot harvesting,” and it is legal in several states, including Georgia.

However, the fact that submitting multiple ballots has been presented as a telltale sign of election fraud lays the groundwork for possible confrontations between dropbox “monitors” and people who are acting entirely within the law. (Right-wing political commentator Monica Matthews, from Clear Talk Media, even tried to remind her followers of this fact. “Before you all plan Dropbox tailgate parties to monitor the integrity of your elections- MAKE SURE you check your new state laws. Some states allow harvesting,” she wrote on Twitter in August. “Confronting people at dropboxes could land you in jail.”)

Earlier this summer, ahead of Washington’s August 2 primary, some signs began showing up near dropboxes near Seattle saying “This Ballot Dropbox is Under Surveillance” and warned of criminal penalties for ballot harvesting, the Seattle Times reported. However, it’s also legal in Washington to drop off multiple ballots at once on behalf of family members.

The signs also had a QR code that allowed passersby to report “suspicious activity” to the King County Republican Party(whose chair disavowed the vigilante activity). Amber Krabach, a GOP activist, QAnon conspiracy theorist and member of the Kings County Republicans’ “Election integrity Committee”, was behind the signs. The county elections office asked the sheriff’s department to investigate whether Krabach had broken a state law barring civilians from influencing someone’s vote within 25 feet of a ballot dropbox. They didn’t press charges, but they did refer the matter to the FBI.

All these vigilante efforts are taking place against a backdrop of increasingly incendiary rhetoric from GOP figures and far-right forums alike, about what will happen if they get even so much of a whiff of “voter fraud” this election season.

“If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it’s going to lead to one place—and it’s bloodshed,” said ex-Congressman Madison Cawthorn at a GOP event in North Carolina this summer.

:{:{}:

On Patriots.win, a pro-Trump forum, some have discussed the need to bring guns to monitor dropboxes. Someone shared an article from the right-wing Gateway Pundit claiming they’d found evidence of massive voter fraud in Detroit during the 2020 election. “We need people waiting for that shit this time and take that shit at gun point,” someone responded. “Use walkie-talkies and don't park anywhere near there or use fake plates and a vehicle wrap.”

Others, like Arroyo from YCPT, have stoked fears of an imminent civil war instigated by the Democrats. “Keep your powder dry until after the midterms,” one person wrote. “No matter what, they are going to try like hell to provoke a civil war before then.”

“Hold the line till Nov… then do whatever the fuck you gotta do,” another user on patriots.win wrote.

===

10 22 trial an

A former Oath Keepers member testified Thursday that he believed group founder Stewart Rhodes was in contact with a Secret Service agent.

John Zimmerman told jurors that Rhodes, who's on trial for seditious conspiracy, claimed at a September 2020 rally to have the phone number of someone with the Secret Service who was in contact with former president Donald Trump.

Zimmerman testified that he didn't know whether Rhodes had a connection to Trump, whom he tried to speak with directly by phone the night of the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to another Oath Keeper militant who pleaded guilty seditious conspiracy in May.

William Todd Wilson told a federal court earlier this year that he joined Rhodes at a hotel near the U.S. Capitol shortly after the deadly attack and listened as themilitia group's leader called a Trump intermediary on speakerphone but was denied.

“[Rhodes] repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose a transfer of power,” Wilson said in his guilty plea.

Zimmerman testified Thursday that Rhodes believed in November 2020 that the former president would invoke the Insurrection Act to handle a "rogue government."

"Kind of like what we're going through now," Zimmerman testified, "with Congress just seeming to do whatever they want."

Rhodes called the person Zimmerman believed to be his Secret Service contact during a Trump rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in September 2020 to ask what "parameters we could operate under," the former Oath Keepers member testified.

===

bizzaroworld inverse:

https://www.mediamatters.org/oath-keepers/infowars-stewart-rhodes-likens-oath-keepers-nelson-mandela-suggests-us-dictatorship

===

https://www.joemygod.com/2022/09/oath-keepers-lawyer-arrested-on-conspiracy-charges/

Washington Post reports:

An attorney for the Oath Keepers who was with the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was arrested Thursday in Texas on charges related to the attack on Congress, federal prosecutors announced.

Kellye SoRelle, 43, was arrested in Junction, Tex., and is scheduled to make an initial appearance Thursday afternoon before a federal judge in Austin, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for Washington.

SoRelle was charged in an indictment returned Wednesday on four counts — conspiracy, obstruction of a federal proceeding, tampering with documents and misdemeanor trespassing in a restricted building or grounds — prosecutors said.

Read the full article. SoRelle last appeared on JMG in January 2022 when she declared herself to be the new leader of the Oath Keepers after the arrest of Stewart Rhodes. SoRelle is a failed candidate for the Texas House, finishing third in the 2020 GOP primary.

===

an 7 22

it not quite clear what, exactly, former President Donald Trump was doing and privately saying inside the White House during the five long, violent hours when more than 2,000 rioters invaded the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.

It’s a key timeline that the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol is set to explore on July 21, 2022 during its latest – and possibly last – public hearing.

At the heart of the issue is Trump’s precise engagement, if any, with the rioters and several fringe nationalist militia groups, including the Proud Boys, Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, that stormed the Capitol.

Amy Cooter, a senior lecturer in sociology at Vanderbilt University, embedded with militia groups, mostly in Michigan, from 2008 through 2012. Knowing who these groups are – and how they have changed over time – makes it easier to understand the Jan. 6 attacks, Cooter said.

“Fifteen years ago, people thought of these groups as being niche, crazy people. That’s not really what I saw in my fieldwork – I saw people who were just more willing to be open about their political perspectives than maybe more mainstream Republicans were at the time. It seemed to me, both then and now, that their concerns resonate with a broad swath of the population,” Cooter said in a recent interview.

We asked Cooter to explain what drives these groups and their complicated relationship with Trump and the government.

What is your understanding of how Trump is seen by these nationalist groups?

Traditionally, militia groups have been very opposed to the federal government, regardless of whether we’re talking about Democrats or Republicans. However, with Trump, they really found sort of a mouthpiece. Not all of them truly liked him, but they really want somebody who speaks out against immigration and has a nationalistic and isolationist perspective. Trump gave them a sense of legitimacy. But there didn’t seem to be too many formal connections, as far as we know.

How does leadership and hierarchy work within these groups?

Many of these groups present themselves as top-down organizations with centralized leadership and then different state-level structures. But the degree to which that is reality varies enormously, especially with the Three Percenters but also with the Oath Keepers.

There are groups that kind of fit the stereotypical top-down model that make it easy to activate them for action. There are other groups who maybe were completely oblivious to this Jan. 6 plan.

What do you mean by activate? That sounds similar to language Trump used during a presidential debate in September 2020, to “stand back and stand by.”

Militias always see themselves as prepared for action. Usually, this means they’re prepared to defend themselves and their communities in the event of a natural disaster, or some kind of invasion. But as we saw leading up to Jan. 6, some of these groups were clearly planning more than just a defensive stance.

What was Trump getting from these groups, and what were they getting from Trump?

They get from Trump this idea that someone finally represents their interests, someone finally sees the state of the nation as they do, even though not all of them completely agree with him. They see it as an opportunity to push things in the direction that they would prefer.

I don’t think it’s much of an exaggeration to say that Trump sees an opportunity for a private army from them. In 2018, he pardoned the Bundy ranchers, who were arrested for arson on federal land. Not a lot of people paid attention to this, but that was a signal to these groups that he had their back and would expect them to have his back in the future.

I think that Jan. 6 is really kind of proof of that, that he has activated people who in some cases do have military or police experience.

How have you seen these groups evolve over time, since you began researching them?

Before Trump, there had been very clear-cut tensions between different groups. That boundary has broken down substantially, and most groups have been pushed more toward an extreme than used to be true – in no small part because of how Trump and others in his administration legitimized the core fears that different groups had about being invaded.

Since Jan. 6, the groups as a whole have declined in size. Many of these people were really surprised at how Jan. 6 played out and were quite embarrassed – or they were appalled that it didn’t go far enough.

Now, many people have taken a step back even from these groups altogether. But the folks that have stuck around continue to be quite radical, and probably even more radical than they were before. Especially thinking about what is going to happen with the midterm elections, we are going to see a lot of invigoration.

Amy Cooter, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Vanderbilt University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

===

cnbc jan 2022

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/13/leader-of-far-right-extremist-group-oath-keepers-arrested-for-january-6-riot-conspiracy-reports-say.html

Federal authorities on Thursday charged Stewart Rhodes, the leader and founder of the extremist far-right Oath Keepers militia, and 10 other people with seditious conspiracy and other crimes for their alleged roles in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

An indictment alleges that after the November 2020 presidential election, Rhodes and others conspired to oppose by force the transfer of presidential power from then-President Donald Trump to Joe Biden, which included plans to breach and try to take control of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

:{:{}:

The conspiracy allegedly involved the amassing of firearms on the outskirts of Washington, D.C, and distribution to so-called quick reaction force teams to support the effort to keep Trump in office, according to the indictment, issued by a grand jury in DC federal court.

That charging document is based in part on access to encrypted messages on the Signal app that federal authorities obtained access to.

The charge of seditious conspiracy carries a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison.

Rhodes, a 56-year-old former U.S. Army paratrooper who live in Granbury, Texas, was arrested early Thursday afternoon. He was subpoenaed in November by the House of Representatives select committee that is investigating the riot,.

Rhodes is known to have been outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan., 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the complex and breached its buildings in an effort to disrupt an ongoing session of Congress confirming the election of Biden.

:{:{}:

Members and affiliates of the Oath Keepers were among the crowd that forcibly rushed into the Capitol past law enforcement officers.

Stewart Rhodes’ lawyer, Jonathon Moseley, told NBC News that he was on the phone with his client talking about his scheduled appearance before the House panel when the FBI came to Rhodes’ house to arrest him.

“They just added the charge without any revelations,” Moseley told NBC. “I don’t think the facts alleged support the charge of seditious conspiracy.”

Also indicted was Edward Vallejo, 63, of Phoenix, Arizona, who was arrested Thursday morning in that city, authorities said.

Neither Rhodes nor Vallejo had been previously charged in connection with the riot.

Nine others who had been previously charged in connection with the riot also were indicted Thursday, according to authorities.

They are: Thomas Caldwell, 67, of Berryville, Va; Joseph Hackett, 51, of Sarasota, Fla.; Kenneth Harrelson, 41, of Titusville, Fla.; Joshua James, 34, of Arab, Ala.; Kelly Meggs, 52, of Dunnellon, Fla.; Roberto Minuta, 37, of Prosper, Texas; David Moerschel, 44, of Punta Gorda, Fla.; Brian Ulrich, 44, of Guyton, Ga.; and Jessica Watkins, 39, of Woodstock, Ohio.

James and Minuta reportedly have acted as bodyguards for Roger Stone, the longtime GOP operative and confidant of Trump. Stone did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the indictment.

Less than a month after the riot, the Justice Department charged Caldwell, who allegedly held a leadership role within the Oath Keepers, of conspiracy, obstructing an official proceeding and other charges.

A defense attorney told a judge last year that the Navy veteran Caldwell previously worked for the FBI and maintained a top-secret security clearance for years.

The Justice Department in a press release said, “Eight other individuals affiliated with the Oath Keepers, all previously charged in the investigation, remain as defendants in two related cases.”

An indictment Thursday charges that Rhodes and certain co-conspirators, which included “selected regional leaders, planned to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power by January 20, 2021, which included multiple ways to deploy force.”

“They coordinated travel across the country to enter Washington, D.C., equipped themselves with a variety of weapons, donned combat and technical gear, and were prepared to answer Rhodes’s call to take up arms at Rhodes’s direction,” the indictment says.

“Some co-conspirators also amassed firearms on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., distributed them among ‘quick reaction force’ (‘QRF’) teams, and planned to use the firearms in support of their plot to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power.”

The charges come as some Trump-allied conservatives have pushed back on the notion that the riot posed a threat to democracy. Those allies previously noted that none of the defendants in Jan. 6-related cases have been charged with insurrection or similar crimes.

Some other court watchers, and at least one judge, have also questioned the Justice Department’s charging decisions in connection with the riot.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, in a speech last week on the first anniversary of the riot, appeared to respond to those critiques.

“In complex cases, initial charges are often less severe than later charged offenses. This is purposeful, as investigators methodically collect and sift through more evidence,” Garland said.

“The actions we have taken thus far will not be our last.”

no lnx july 2022

Militia groups expected to be focus at Jan. 6 hearing: What to know about Arizona's connection

Richard Ruelas

Arizona Republic

As a group of Oath Keepers joined the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, one that eventually would use a standard military formation to break through the crowd and breach the building, a 63-year-old man from Phoenix was in a Virginia hotel packed with weapons awaiting his orders.

“Vallejo back at hotel and outfitted," the man, Edward Vallejo, messaged to other Oath Keepers at 2:24 p.m. that day, according to court records.

"Have 2 trucks available. Let me know how I can assist."

Prosecutors contended that Vallejo and the other Oath Keepers were amassing an arsenal and supplies that could last 30 days. If President Donald Trump would declare martial law, the prosecutors’ theory went, they would be ready.

The scheduled 10 a.m. Tuesday hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was expected to look at the role of militia-style groups such as the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and Three Percenters in the riot.

[When is the next Jan. 6 hearing? What to know and how to watch

In an interview on CNN, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the chairman of the committee, suggested evidence exists of people in Trump’s inner circle speaking with members of the militia groups.

“We have a number of witnesses who have come forward that people have not talked to before, that will document a lot of what was going on in the Trump orbit while all of this was occurring,” Thompson said.

Ariz. man charged with seditious conspiracy

Ed Vallejo

Vallejo was charged with seditious conspiracy in January, in an indictment that included 10 other Oath Keepers members, including the group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes.

Vallejo split with the group in 2014 but somehow decided to join Oath Keepers in D.C., traveling in a vehicle loaded with food and kitchen equipment.

Vallejo said he thought he would be cooking for forces who might camp out and picket up until the inauguration day a few weeks later.

Prosecutors contend that Vallejo was part of a so-called “quick reactionary force” and was poised to deliver weapons to Oath Keepers if need be.

Rhodes sent a group message on the morning of Jan. 6 that described several “QRFs outside DC.” Who would be “watching and waiting on the outside in case of worst case scenarios.”

Vallejo used the term QRF himself in a text message sent on Jan. 6. “QRF standing by at hotel,” he wrote. “Just say the word.”

More: How an Arizona man was charged with seditious conspiracy

A documentary filmmaker captured footage of the leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys meeting in a parking garage on Jan. 5, 2021, the night before the riot. The head of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, was ordered out of the city after an arrest. Video of the apparent first meeting between the two men was played during the initial prime time Jan. 6 committee hearing.

A group of Proud Boys from Arizona, clad in orange caps and armbands, were among the first wave of rioters to breach the barricades outside the U.S. Capitol. A Capitol police officer testified during the first public hearing on June 9 that the situation grew more dire when the Arizona contingent of Proud Boys joined the crowd at the barricades, with verbal attacks starting to be aimed at officers.

One man, Micajah Joel Jackson, was sentenced to 36 months probation after he was seen marching with the orange-clad Proud Boys. Jackson said he was not a memberbut simply marched with fellow Arizonans who were kind enough to gift him an orange armband.

The other orange-clad Proud Boys from Arizona have not yet been identified, nor arrested.

Democracy in doubt: The origins of the Arizona election review

Arizona lawmakers who support Oath Keepers

At least three Arizona lawmakers have shown support for Oath Keepers, including at least one who has also drawn attention from the Jan. 6 committee.

Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem has called himself an Oath Keeper on social media, has spoken to Oath Keeper chapters and called himself a member when he first ran for the House in 2014.

“I’m an Oath Keeper committed to the exercise of limited, constitutional governance,” he wrote in response to a candidate questionnaire sent out by the community news website inmaricopa.com.

Finchem planned an unofficial legislative meeting at a downtown Phoenix hotel that featured Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and presented hours of purported evidence of election fraud.

[Cyber Ninjas CEO faces criminal probe in Michigan voting plot

Maricopa County seeks sanctions against Lake, Finchem

Donald Trump's scandals are unique in history. Here's how.

Alex Jones' texts could shed light on 'Stop the Steal' protests]

Finchem was in D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, for a rally he planned alongside Ali Alexander, an activist who spearheaded the Stop the Steal movement.

State Sen. Wendy Rogers also has claimed membership to the Oath Keepers.

State Sen. Kelly Townsend posted on Twitter that she was an Oath Keeper but later seemed to hedge that it didn’t mean she belonged to a group, but that she just kept her oath of office.

Rogers and Townsend are running against each other for a state Senate seat.

The Proud Boys do not have any advertised meetings where politicians are invited. But members were often seen at the Arizona State Capitol during various protests. They also have attended rallies and speeches where speakers claimed election fraud.

===

https://yyy.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/23/donald-trump-lawsuit-lord-of-the-rings-gondor-election

guk

donald Trump’s diehard supporters are often accused of living in fantasyland, but one court case recently launched to try to reinstall him as president has surprised even the most hardened observers of Trumpian strangeness by citing as evidence a mythological realm from The Lord of the Rings.

The case was launched in Texas, in the name of small conservative groups including Latinos for Trump and Blacks for Trump, and was filed by Paul Davis, an attorney who lost his job after posting Instagram videos of himself at the attack on the Capitol.

The case offers a baseless mix of allegations of electoral fraud common among the Trump base and calls for the voiding of every vote cast in the election – which was won handily by now-President Joe Biden, who was sworn in this week.

But – unusually for a legal strategy – the case cites as evidence to back up its pro-Trump claims the tragic fate of the kingdom of Gondor, one of the central realms of JRR Tolkien’s fantasy classic, whose exiled ruler, Aragorn, was played onscreen by Viggo Mortensen.

“Gondor has no king,” the lawsuit states, a footnote providing an explanation of the woeful fate of Tolkien’s entirely imaginary land populated by dragons, wizards, hobbits and elves, all threatened by a baleful Dark Lord backed up by an army of orcs and with famously little time for due democratic process.

The suit explains how Gondor’s throne was empty and its rightful kings in exile, presumably positing the idea that Trump is the true king of America – a land happily monarch-free since 1776.

“This analogy is applicable since there is now in Washington DC a group of individuals calling themselves the president, vice-president and Congress who have no rightful claim to govern the American people,” the case states.

It adds: “Since only the rightful king could sit on the throne of Gondor, a steward was appointed to manage Gondor until the return of the King, known as ‘Aragorn’, occurred at the end of the story.”

The lawsuit then suggests that America’s version of the stewards of Gondor should be selected from among – surprise, surprise – Trump’s cabinet members, who should run the country.

Legal experts have taken a tough line.

“One thing that Americans learned during the post-election litigation is how little patience courts have for absurd legal arguments,” Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, told Salon in a thorough takedown of the case and its legal merits.

“This legal effort to declare Congress illegitimate will be laughed out of court and could lead to sanctions for the lawyer bringing such a claim.”

[the new abnormal] TDB

Capitol Riots

Oath Keepers Founder Secretly Backed Lawsuit for Government Based on ‘Lord of the Rings’

TRICKSY HOBBITSES

Lawyers for Stewart Rhodes are arguing their client stopped trying to overturn the election after Jan. 6. That’s not exactly true.

Roger Sollenberger

Political Reporter

Updated Feb. 18, 2022 6:30AM ET / Published Feb. 18, 2022

After the violent Capitol insurrection failed on Jan. 6, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes had another idea for overturning the election—a truly epic one.

:{:{}:

While Rhodes’ lawyers have claimed the leader of the far-right militia group did “precisely nothing” after his insurrection dreams were dashed, new details obtained by The Daily Beast reveal that isn’t quite accurate.

:{:{}:

According to a source with inside knowledge of the case, just days after Jan. 6, Rhodes and multiple militia members joined a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

Unfortunately for Rhodes and his compatriots, the lawsuit he signed on to was, in a word, “insane.” It went off the rails almost as soon as it hit the courts, with the lead attorney citing The Lord of the Rings as legal precedent.

Eventually, the case dissolved amid a sea of ridicule. But it didn’t start out that way.

The full scope of the Oath Keeper’s shadow legal effort, largely spearheaded by the group’s then-general counsel Kellye SoRelle, stretched back well before the riot, according to multiple people involved. In fact, it ran on a parallel track alongside the paramilitary-style buildup that has defined the militia’s role, and it roped in a number of key Jan. 6 figures along the way—including people tied to the Proud Boys and First Amendment Praetorians.

Rick Hasen, a nationally recognized election law expert, told The Daily Beast that Rhodes’ connection to this lawsuit didn’t rate highly against other accusations—such as allegedly stockpiling weapons in preparation for a violent coup.

“I don’t know the fact that he was one of many who joined this absurd lawsuit is all that significant compared to the other, more immediately dangerous things that he did,” Hasen said.

But Rhodes, a Yale Law grad, appears to have been hands-on with the lawsuit from the beginning. And the nexus represented in the legal push suggests that members of violent groups—with some such as Rhodes facing conspiracy charges—coordinated to overturn the election in more ways than one.

It also undermines assertions from Rhodes’ attorneys that the Oath Keepers founder discontinued his efforts to overturn the election after Jan. 6—a potentially important legal fact that could hurt Rhodes’ case as he tries to defend himself against “seditious conspiracy” charges.

[Oath Keepers militia founder Stewart Rhodes poses during an interview session in Eureka, Montana, U.S. June 20, 2016.]

Just days after the riot, a group gathered at a house in suburban Dallas to map out a legal path forward. According to a person with knowledge of the meeting, the crew included SoRelle, along with indicted Oath Keeper Joshua James, andTexas attorney Paul Davis,who said in a later court filing he had attended the Jan. 6 rallies to “collect evidence” on behalf of “one or more of the Plaintiffs.”

:{:{}:

(Davis later filed a lawsuit against this reporter, which was dismissed with prejudice.)

Other parties to the lawsuit were in attendance, and Rhodes also showed up, the source said.

SoRelle, who had met with a number of right-wing figures ahead of the riot, was recruited after the election to test the waters for a possible legal remedy. When the violence of Jan. 6 failed, a plan went into action. And it was one that Rhodes himself endorsed.

The legal framework stemmed from a pre-riot plan devised by right-wing radio host Jerome Corsi—a former confidant of Roger Stone, who received an Oath Keeper protective detail on Jan. 5 and 6.

Corsi’s proposal hinged on “overwhelming” evidence and a warped understanding of the Help America Vote Act, leading him to declare all of Congress illegitimate and demand an election “redo.”

[Stewart Rhodes mugshot.

Collin County Sheriff's Office]

The plan was astronomically unrealistic on its face, but that didn’t stop Corsi from dubbing it the “invincible argument.”

Still, on Jan. 5, the day before the riot, Rhodes slapped his name on Corsi’s road map. SoRelle, the Oath Keepers general counsel, signed as well. (An archived version with their signatures can be found here.)

Reached for comment, Corsi told The Daily Beast he was “retired from active politics and not giving interviews about the election.”

The initial lawsuit that Davis and SoRelle put together hewed closely to Corsi’s path. It sought to invalidate the 2020 election, declare Joe Biden’s victory “unlawful,” and dissolve Congress. Davis took lead attorney, naming hundreds of defendants, including every member of Congress, all 50 governors and secretaries of state, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

It somehow got weirder. In its most absurd iteration—with Davis, not SoRelle, at the helm—the lawsuit asked a federal judge to put the government into a receivership styled after the mythical kingdom of Gondor from The Lord of The Rings.

“During the course of the epic trilogy, the rightful King of Gondor had abandoned the throne,” the lawsuit explained. “Since only the rightful king could sit on the throne of Gondor, a steward was appointed to manage Gondor until the return of the King, known as ‘Aragorn,’ occurred at the end of the story.”

If that legal explanation wasn’t convincing enough, the lawsuit continued: “This analogy is applicable since there is now in Washington, D.C., a group of individuals calling themselves the President, Vice President, and Congress who have no rightful claim to govern the American People.”

[Enrique Tarrio, Chairman of the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, attend a meeting in a garage in Washington, U.S. in a still image taken from video January 5, 2021, the day before the January 6 riot.]

Saboteur Media/Handout via REUTERS

The attorneys then ask the judge to “appoint a group of special masters” that they invented, called “Stewards,” to “check the power of the illegitimate President” until the matter is resolved through a jury trial.

Notably, the original complaint also asked the court to pre-emptively block the Department of Justice, the FBI, and any other federal agency from arresting both of the attorneys filing the case—as well as “any plaintiff or potential witness”—in connection to their attendance at the Jan. 6 riot.

As for those plaintiffs, many of them happened to figure prominently on Jan. 6.

One was Latinos for Trump, a group tied to Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio. The organization’s leader, Bianca Gracia was also a “Gondor” plaintiff. The day before the insurrection, she met with Rhodes, Tarrio, and SoRelle in a D.C. hotel parking garage.

The garage gang featured another Gondor plaintiff—Virginia resident Joshua Macias. Macias was one of two men arrested in Pennsylvania days after the 2020 election when, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, pistols, and a sword, he took a vehicle bearing QAnon propaganda across state lines to the Philadelphia convention center where ballots were being processed.

SoRelle claims that Gracia had invited her to the parking garage to meet Tarrio, and “share information about criminal defense attorneys,” according to Reuters. That same day, SoRelle, Rhodes, Gracia, and Macias all endorsed Corsi’s argument, as did another adviser on the lawsuit.

Most of Corsi’s signatories, however, went unnamed. Likewise, most Gondor plaintiffs were represented only by their initials. But according to a person with inside knowledge of the suit, that list included multiple Oath Keepers.

Two of them stand out: Elmer “Stewart” Rhodes (“E.R.,” a resident of Texas), and Joshua James (“J.J.,” of Alabama), an Oath Keeper and Roger Stone bodyguard.

SoRelle has sought to distance both herself and the Oath Keepers from James, who was hit with conspiracy charges last April for his alleged role in the Capitol attack.

James, SoRelle has claimed, was more closely tied to the First Amendment Praetorians, another far-right armed group. The April indictment cites video footage showing that James “assaulted multiple law enforcement officers after storming inside the building,” screaming, “Get out of my Capitol! This is my fucking building!”

After Davis filed that motion, Rhodes encouraged state chapters to contribute to the case.

A database of hacked Oath Keeper emails shows SoRelle outsourcing legal research around the country, with Rhodes’ blessing.

“Stewart agreed to allow me to send out an email to all the chapters requesting assistance,” SoRelle wrote in a mass communication, one week after asking a federal judge to essentially break the government. She copied Rhodes on the email, using his personal gmail address.

The email also requested, among other things, “documentation for all 50 states regarding their orders/policy changes modifying their absentee ballot process, the use of drop boxes, voter registration changes and certification information for the machines used for elections.”

“We are required to provide additional information to the court by the 10th of February and I need 5 days to compile and draft,” SoRelle wrote. “If anyone is interested in assisting, please let me know. I would like to coordinate teams and divide up the states.”

On Feb. 10, Davis filed an amended complaint. It struck the Gondor proposal, but added Rhodes. Six days later, he filed a second amended complaint.

On Feb. 19, team Gondor shattered under the pressure of competing legal strategies and vague “ethical issues.” Davis withdrew as lead counsel, taking James but leaving SoRelle with Gracia, Latinos for Trump, and Rhodes.

It would be Rhodes’ last legal hurrah for 11 months. He was arrested on Jan. 13, and along with fellowGondor alum Joshua James, faces charges that could yield 20 years in jail.

Just this week, his attorney told the court that Rhodes still believes the election was “illegitimate.” And unlike many of the rioters who received the earliest charges and claimed ignorance, Rhodes is leaning into it.

“There’s plenty of public leaders that are still saying that on a regular basis,” his attorney said.

===

https://www.**adl**.org/resources/profiles/oath-keepers

published: 09.17.2015

For Law Enforcement

Read the report: The Oath Keepers: Anti-Government Extremists Recruiting Military and Police (PDF)

In the past several years, the Oath Keepers, an anti-government right-wing fringe organization, attracted considerable media attention for activities that included showing up in Ferguson, Missouri, during protests and unrests following the shooting of a young African-American male by a Ferguson police officer in 2014.

Oath Keepers also appeared as self-appointed armed guards at military recruiting centers in different parts of the country following the deadly shooting attacks by Mohammad Abdulazeez on two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July 2015. In August, they set up a so-called “security mission” at a Montana mine to prevent “unlawful action by the United States Forest Service.”

More recently, the Oath Keepers tried to exploit the controversy surrounding Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. After Davis was released from several days in jail for contempt of court, the Oath Keepers, claiming to have “boots on the ground” in Rowan County, offered Davis “protection…to ensure she will not be illegally detained again.” They claimed that she had been illegally arrested and held without due process. However, Davis declined their “offer.”

Who are these Oath Keepers who keep showing up across the United States?

The Oath Keepers

The Oath Keepers are a large but loosely organized collection of anti-government extremists who are part of the broader anti-government “Patriot” movement, which includes militia and “three percenter” groups, sovereign citizens, and tax protesters, among others. What differentiates the Oath Keepers from other anti-government extremist groups is that the Oath Keepers explicitly focus on recruiting current and former military members, police officers and firefighters (although they accept anyone as members).

The ideology of the Oath Keepers most closely resembles that of the militia movement, whose adherents believe that the United States is collaborating with a one-world tyrannical conspiracy called the New World Order to strip Americans of their rights—starting with their right to keep and bear arms. Once Americans are rendered defenseless, the theory goes, they too will be enslaved by the New World Order.

The Oath Keepers aim much of their propaganda at military and police, reminding them that they swore an oath to defend the Constitution “from all enemies, foreign and domestic” and asking them to pledge to disobey unconstitutional orders they might get from superiors—orders that explicitly or implicitly refer to various militia-related conspiracy theories, such as mass gun confiscation or rounding up Americans to put them in concentration camps. Each theory relates to the notion that the United States government is falling under global governance and will at some point use police and military members to enforce the New World Order’s dominance. The Oath Keepers urge military and law enforcement personnel to step up to stop the conspirators.

Founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, a Montana attorney and Army veteran who acts as the group’s main mouthpiece, the Oath Keepers are essentially a current and more successful version of a similar 1990s group, Police Against the New World Order, started by retired police officer Jack McLamb, who died in 2014. McLamb warned of post-cold war chaos perpetrated by an elitist-controlled New World Order, while Rhodes warns of an insidious global oligarchy bent on destroying America’s constitutional republic.

The number of active duty police and military personnel who have admitted to being Oath Keepers is quite small; the number of closeted members may be larger but is still probably relatively small. The Oath Keepers have had more success in recruiting former military personnel, a much larger manpower pool to draw upon. They have also recruited people already involved in the anti-government extremist movement. Many Oath Keepers do not have any current or former ties with military, police, or first responders. Many more people identify with or support the Oath Keepers without ever officially joining (which requires paying dues).

The Oath Keepers claim to have tens of thousands of members. It seems clear that they do not have anywhere near that number of members, but they do have at least a couple thousand, which makes them one of the largest anti-government extremist groups in the U.S., larger than any militia group. Though there is a formal national leadership, on the local level many Oath Keepers are essentially self-organized, forming official, semi-official or informal groupings of Oath Keepers in specific, sometimes even overlapping, geographic areas.

There is a lot of overlap between people who belong to or support the Oath Keepers and people who support the very similar but even more loosely organized “three percenter” movement, an anti-government movement whose adherents think of themselves as standing up to the federal government as American revolutionaries once stood up to the British government. There is also overlap between some individual Oath Keepers and various militia groups.

Oath Keeper Rhetoric and Ideology

With conspiratorial rhetoric as their food and drink, the Oath Keepers have several mainstay theories they repeatedly peddle to serve as proof that their “constitutional republic” is being taken over and destroyed by evil forces. These primary beliefs, which encapsulate the one-world government conspiracy theories that underpin the anti-government movement, stoke paranoia, fan anti-government sentiment and give them purpose.

These include:

[IRONY ALERT]

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 certainly not limited to) door to door gun confiscation, the ban of interstate travel, and concentration camp-like detainment of citizens en masse. 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). Some Oath Keepers have claimed that the government may even stage a terrorist attack or other incident as an excuse to declare martial law.

Anti-United Nations Sentiments: Oath Keepers view the United Nations (UN) as a tool of the “New World Order” that is actually designed to undermine American sovereignty. Some looming UN transgressions anticipated by Oath Keepers include the implementation of global taxation and a global currency that would end the use of the dollar. Overreaching laws or regulations are also expected. For example, the Oath Keepers believe that a UN Small Arms Treaty will be implemented to bypass the second Amendment and prohibit firearms. Many believe a voluntary UN sustainable development plan known as Agenda 21 is a scheme to take away private property and civil liberties in the name of sustainability.

NDAA is Treason: Rhodes and the Oath Keepers are vehemently opposed to the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA; the regular Congressional military budget appropriation legislation) and have characterized it as a declaration of war on the American people and an act of treason. Rhodes claims that the NDAA allows the government to treat American citizens as they would treat a foreign enemy in time of war, giving the government the unconstitutional power to assassinate or detain American citizens without due process. Oath Keepers have also argued that the government will use drones to kill Americans. In a March 2013 Internet post, Rhodes wrote that “30,000 drones will be used to kill Americans on U.S. soil. Which is why we cannot allow them to be put into our skies. We are on a short track to open conflict. They are driving us to it.” Indeed, in 2014, during the confrontation in Nevada on the ranch of Cliven Bundy between the federal government and anti-government extremists supporting Bundy, the Oath Keepers at the ranch became convinced they would be subjected to a military drone strike and pulled out of the standoff—to the anger of militia leaders and others at the ranch.

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. Rhodes insists the government wants to track gun owners like it does sex offenders and is using mass shooting incidents as an excuse to violate Second Amendment rights. Rhodes has said the purpose of the Second Amendment is to “preserve the ability of the people, who are the militia, to provide for their own security” and “to preserve the military capacity of the American people to resist tyranny and violations of their rights by oath breakers within government.” He has also said that semi-automatic, military pattern rifles are the single most important kind of weapon people can own. According to Rhodes, “We are supposed to have the same military capacity as any infantry squad, any infantry platoon." Another Oath Keeper theory claims the Veterans Administration is busily deeming veterans mentally unfit in order to legally disarm Americans trained to fight, thereby paving the way for a foreign (New World Order) takeover.

Prepper Movement Targeted:Oath Keepers allege that the government views survivalists or “Preppers,” as they are often now called, as future military opponents. According to Rhodes, a Prepper is a person who is awake and aware, and takes responsibility for themselves and their family. He says the government fears them because they are not subservient, but could resist the government. This conspiracy can also include claims that such “dissidents” will be locked away in concentration camps constructed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Oath Keeper Pledge

The Oath Keeper’s belief that the allegedly tyrannical American government will use law enforcement and military personnel against its people leads to their avowed purpose of opposing such conspiracies. This sentiment is encapsulated in the so-called Oath Keeper’s Pledge, which they ask all members and supporters to take. The pledge, which refers to the honorable vow of service given by those in uniform, reminds Oath Keepers that they swore an oath to defend the Constitution “from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” By taking this pledge, Oath Keepers vow that they will refuse to cooperate with the “tyrannical government” by making a declaration that there are certain “orders” from superiors that they will refuse to obey.

The list of “orders” the Oath Keepers vow to refuse reveals their extreme conspiratorial mindset, because the “orders” are not instructions ever likely to be actually handed down by officials; instead, they are reflective of the anti-government conspiracy theories embraced by the extreme right. 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. The other “orders” they refuse to follow are of a similar sort.

Orders Oath Keepers “refuse”:

We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.
We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people.
We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to military tribunal.
We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state.
We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.
We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.
We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control.”
We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.
We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

Oath Keeper Tactics

In addition to peddling conspiracy theories and paranoia, the Oath Keepers use a number of strategies to stay in the forefront of the anti-government extremist movement in the United States. Most relate to their recruitment and promotional efforts.

Community Preparedness Teams (CPT): In October 2013, the Oath Keepers announced the formation of “civilization preservation cells” (since renamed Community Preparedness Teams), which Rhodes claims are necessitated by the country’s impending (and possibly government-created) economic collapse. The formation of these cells, patterned after military Special Forces, closes the narrow gap that separates the Oath Keepers from the militia movement.In 2015, various Oath Keeper CPTs have held militia-like training sessions on topics such as weapons use, patrolling techniques, first aid, and emergency communications.

Infiltrating the Tea Party: Since its founding, many Oath Keepers have tried to play a role within the Tea Party movement. In so doing, they have had more success than other right-wing extremist groups or movements who have tried similar outreach. Oath Keeper leaders have spoken at numerous Tea Party events around the country. In 2012, the Oath Keepers funded a pro-Tea Party billboard outside the gate of the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, military base. The billboard was in response to an officer at the base who had written an article illustrating legal and doctrinal issues about military operations within U.S. borders that used a hypothetical scenario depicting a right-wing uprising by militia groups and others ostensibly “motivated by the goals of the ‘tea party’ movement.”

Targeting NASCAR/stock car fans: The Oath Keepers have sponsored NASCAR driver Jeffrey Earnhardt at races in Delaware and New Hampshire. Hoping to reach NASCAR fans, the Oath Keepers paid thousands of dollars to have the Oath Keeper logo displayed across the car’s hood. At a local level, Georgia Oath Keepers similarly sponsored local stock car driver Dusty Jones.

Promotional billboards: In an effort to recruit military members, the Oath Keepers have placed “Honor your oath” promotional billboards near military bases around the country. Other Oath Keeper billboards display reminders of the orders members should refuse to obey, e.g. refuse to detain Americans, refuse to conduct warrantless searches, and refuse to disarm Americans. More recently, the Oath Keepers used DC Metro billboards to show support for intelligence leaker and whistleblower Edward Snowden, with billboards claiming that “Snowden honored his oath.”

Care packages for military members: The Oath Keepers court military members by sending them care packages that include Oath Keeper propaganda such as the Oath Keepers handbook, Oath Keeper patches, bumper stickers, and outreach brochures and cards.

Oath Keeper Activities

Oath Keepers across the country have engaged in a wide array of activities, some of which have gotten considerable media attention. Recent activities include:

Patrolling Ferguson: A small group of armed local Oath Keepers, led by Sam Andrews, contributed to the unrest and controversy in Ferguson, Missouri, that arose after a grand jury declined to indict a former police officer for the 2014 shooting death of a black teenager. During these appearances, Oath Keepers wearing military fatigues and flak jackets stationed themselves on building roofs and conducted street patrols, claiming they were there to protect local businesses and reporters from angry protesters. The local Oath Keepers at first seemed aligned with police, but their anti-government nature eventually asserted itself in 2015. They sided with protesters after the Ferguson police chief announced that the Oath Keepers could not openly carry weapons while the city was in a state of emergency and could not act as security guards without first obtaining required licenses. In August 2015, Andrews vowed the Oath Keepers would return to Ferguson and sponsor an “open carry” march of at least 50 African-American men armed with AR-15’s. However, Rhodes did not support the planned march, saying Oath Keepers would instead train “law-abiding citizens” to protect themselves from rioters, not to confront cops. Andrews then quit the Oath Keepers to form his own group, claiming that Rhodes’ decision showed a racist double standard.

The Ferguson incident highlights an internal tension between the Oath Keepers’ anti-government ideology and their focus on military and police personnel. In reaction to various controversial shootings by and of police in 2014-2015, most Oath Keepers have tended to side with law enforcement against protesters such as Black Lives Matters. However, a minority of Oath Keepers are so anti-authoritarian that they have been less willing to express support for law enforcement. 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.The Oath Keepers seem to be trying to resolve this tension by focusing their confrontational tactics primarily against various federal law enforcement agencies, while often siding with local law enforcement officers in these other controversies. There is no doubt that the Oath Keepers are openly hostile to federal law enforcement, while their attitudes about local law enforcement are more ambiguous or variable.

Operation Protect the Protectors: Following a July 2015 attack on two separate Tennessee military facilities by Mohammad Abdulazeez, the Oath Keepers launched “Operation Protect the Protectors.” During this short-lived call for action, members of the Oath Keepers (as well as some others) armed themselves and stood guard outside various military recruitment centers around the nation under the pretense of guarding unarmed military recruiters. By mid-August, however, organizers were struggling to find volunteers, especially after law enforcement and military officials asked them to stand down. Undeterred, Rhodes called the exercise a success and wrote that “a new current is now moving across the nation, unseen. That move is to take the PTP program ‘covert.’ Think about that, eh? There are a lot more Patriots ready to stand up for America, without talking to the news stations or revealing their presence, as daily the face of the government is revealed more and more.”

Acting as armed security during land disputes:The Oath Keepers have issued calls for action during disputes between land owners and federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service. In 2015, armed Oath Keepers along with various individuals from the broader “Patriot” movement guarded mines in Montana and Oregon during regulation compliance disputes related to mining rights versus surface rights. At the White Hope mine in Lincoln, Montana, the U.S. Forest Service took issue with an unauthorized shed and surface disturbances related to the cutting of firewood. Similarly, the owners of Sugar Pine Mine in Josephine County, Oregon, were in a dispute with BLM over unauthorized surface structures. The Oath Keepers also provided armed security for Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy during a 2014 grazing dispute with the BLM. In this case, the Oath Keepers and other right-wing extremists opposed BLM’s efforts to impound Bundy’s cattle, which had been illegally grazing on federal land. In his call for action, Rhodes asked all Oath Keepers to come to the Bundy Ranch and “stand up against a corrupt government that would subvert us all,” though, as noted, fear of drone strikes caused an Oath Keepers retreat.

Advocacy for the Constitutional Sheriff and Peace Officers Association:The Oath Keepers routinely show support for fellow Oath Keeper Richard Mack. Mack, a former Arizona Sheriff and well-known figure on the far right, leads the Constitutional Sheriff and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), which promotes the notion that local sheriffs do not have to obey federal authorities and that the federal government lacks real authority. Mack was influenced by the doctrine of the Posse Comitatus, a loosely-organized extreme anti-government movement that blossomed in the 1970s and 1980s, whose core belief was that the county was the highest level of government because it was the level of government closest to the people.

Participation in Alex Jones’ talk show:Stewart Rhodes is a regular guest of conspiracy talk show host Alex Jones, repeatedly appearing on The Alex Jones Show to promote the Oath Keepers and spread his conspiratorial doctrines. The Texas-based Jones is one of the most prominent conspiracy theorists in the United States, and has been responsible for spreading and popularizing a wide variety of conspiracy theories, the majority espousing some form of extreme anti-government viewpoint.

Criminal Activity

Oath Keepers members have not limited their activities to spouting extreme anti-government conspiracy theories. Even though the group is relatively new, a number of people associated with the Oath Keepers have been involved in criminal incidents since its founding in 2009.

Some of these incidents include:

Las Vegas, Nevada, April 2015: FBI agents arrested Nevada Oath Keeper (and Bundy standoff participant) Richard Lee Cook after he was indicted on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Cook had previous convictions for possessing stolen property, grand larceny and attempted possession of a controlled substance.

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. As part of a December 2014 plea agreement, Irish admitted to lying to authorities. He also admitted to persuading his girlfriend to purchase assault rifle parts for him in order to avoid a background check (Irish was prohibited from possessing weapons). In return, prosecutors dropped the other three charges against Irish. In February 2015, Irish was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Herndon, Virginia, July 2013: Gun rights activist and Oath Keeper Adam Kokesh was arrested in Washington, D.C., on weapon charges after a search warrant on his Virginia home turned up firearms and illegal drugs. In a separate incident, the U.S. Park Police arrested Kokesh for bearing arms at the Freedom Plaza in violation of Washington D.C. law by loading a shotgun. A District of Columbia judge sentenced Kokesh to two years’ probation on the shotgun charge in November 2013. In September 2014, following an Alford plea by Kokesh, a Fairfax County, Virginia, judge ordered a suspended sentence for the warrant-related felony drug and gun charges. In cases of an Alford Plea, a defendant does not admit guilt, but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence for a conviction. Prior to his arrest, Kokesh claimed to be an Oath Keeper and promoted the Oath Keepers through his a radio talk show, “Adam vs. the Man.”

Westfield, Massachusetts, March 2011: Oath Keeper David M. Phillips was arrested in Massachusetts on charges of possession of ammunition without the required Firearms Identification Card and four counts of possession of a large capacity firearm feeding device. The charges followed a March 2011 vehicle stop by the Worcester Police Department due to an invalid license plate and driving with excessive speed. When questioned, Phillips allegedly told the officer that he was exempt from having to register or insure his vehicle. The officer towed the vehicle after a check revealed that the vehicle registration and insurance had been cancelled. During an inventory search of the vehicle’s trunk, police found nine large-capacity ammunition magazines along with 2,156 rounds of ammunition. Phillips was eventually convicted and sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

Dallas, Georgia, and Madisonville, Tennessee, April 2010: Darren Huff, a Georgia militia member and Oath Keeper, traveled to Tennessee with an AK-47 and a .45 caliber Colt handgun in order to make “citizens arrests” of government officials who had refused demands to indict President Obama. He was charged with carrying a firearm in interstate commerce with intent to use it for civil disorder, as well as a second count of using a firearm in relation to another felony. 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. A federal jury convicted him on the carrying a firearm charge but acquitted him of using a firearm in relation to another felony. In May 2012, a federal judge in Knoxville sentenced Huff to four years in prison.

Cleveland, Ohio, April 2010: Matthew Fairfield, president of the local Oath Keepers chapter, was arrested in 2010 on a large number of explosives and other charges, including child pornography allegations. 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. Following a 2011 no contest plea, Fairfield received a 16-year sentence.

Duncan, Oklahoma, January 2010: Charles Dyer, an Oklahoma Oath Keeper, was arrested by local law enforcement in January 2010 on charges of raping a young child; during his arrest, authorities also discovered an unregistered grenade launcher in his residence that had been stolen from a military base in California. Dyer failed to show up in court for his trial, becoming a fugitive. 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? Depends on what you want to do with it. Me? I’m going to use my training and become one of those domestic terrorists that you’re so afraid of from the DHS reports.” He still has many supporters within the “Patriot” movement.

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, April 2009: Daniel Knight Hayden, an Oath Keeper supporter, was arrested in April 2009 by the FBI after posting a series of Twitter messages threatening to attack Oklahoma officials (including police officers) on April 15 (Tax Day). He was subsequently convicted of knowingly transmitting a threatening communication and received an eight-month sentence.

no lnx many march 2022

What we know about the nearly 300 NH residents who appear in Oath Keepers database

Todd BookmanNew Hampshire Public Radio

The names of nearly 300 New Hampshire residents – including members of law enforcement, a sitting Republican state senator, former lawmakers, local elected officials, and military personnel – appear in a database of alleged members of the Oath Keepers militia, though the extent of their ongoing involvement is not detailed.

The hacked membership list, which NHPR obtained through a whistleblower group, offers a detailed look at how political extremism and calls for political violence have attracted residents of New Hampshire in positions of power, in addition to a range of other citizens.

NHPR has confirmed, after speaking individually with them, that at least two current police officers were at one point involved in the Oath Keepers. Another certified officer whose name and cell phone number appear in the leaked database denied his involvement when contacted by NHPR. Nothing in state law appears to prohibit an officer from joining an extremist group, though an officer’s conduct or actions can lead to a suspension or decertification.

Who is Stewart Rhodes?:Vegas parking valet, Yale law graduate, unhinged Oath Keepers leader

Towns from the Seacoast to the North Country to the Monadnock region are represented in the database. Manchester, Salem, Nashua and Weare are home to the most names on the list.

In addition, the names of local lawyers, business owners, a cemetery trustee and a martial arts instructor appear in the database. At least 18 residents whose names appear in the membership data appear to have campaigned for state or federal office in New Hampshire, based on election records.

About a dozen residents whose names are in the leaked Oath Keepers dataset appear to have served in local government, including on select boards, according to a review of records by NHPR.

A 'loosely organized militia': Who are the Oath Keepers

The Oath Keepers are labeled as a “large but loosely organized militia” by the U.S. Department of Justice. The group is rooted in conspiracy theories, including the belief that the federal government could force American citizens into concentration camps. Founded in 2009, the Oath Keepers held one of its first public events in Lexington, Mass.

Since its founding, the Oath Keepers have sought to recruit members of the military and law enforcement, but have also permitted anyone who paid annual dues to formally join the group.

Members have been active in both armed standoffs with the government, as well as an incendiary presence at racial justice protests across the country in recent years.

Stewart Rhodes, the group’s leader, was arrested earlier this year on charges of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. At least 20 other members of the group have also been charged for their conduct in the riot.

What did they say in Lexington?:Oath Keepers gather 2014 for second year in a row

The group’s membership data was hacked by an unknown source and then distributed to media outlets, including NHPR, byDDoSecrets Collective, a whistleblower group. The records do not include details about when many of the members first joined the Oath Keepers, when they may have ended their membership, or how involved they may have been with the organization.

“I left that group years ago,” NH Sen. Bob Giuda said in an interview with NHPR about his appearance in the database. “I wasn’t comfortable with the way the group was being run.”

Who are the New Hampshire-related names on the Oath Keepers membership list?

The database contains the names of at least 297 people with ties to New Hampshire, including State Sen. Bob Giuda, a Republican from Warren, who confirmed his previous involvement with the group to NHPR. Deputy Craig Charest of the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office confirmed his previous membership with the Oath Keepers, as did Officer Scott Young, former chief of police in Strafford who now works with the Barrington Police Department. All three said they severed their ties with the Oath Keepers years ago.

Bob Clegg, a former state Senate majority leader and congressional candidate who now works as a State House lobbyist, also appears in the membership rolls. He told NHPR he was signed up by a former colleague in the New Hampshire Legislature, former Representative Jennifer Coffey, who also paid for his membership dues. He never renewed his membership, Clegg said, or had any other contact with the group. Coffey also told NHPR that she is no longer a member of the Oath Keepers.

What is NSC-131?:Neo-Nazi group getting bigger, more active, says anti-hate group

Two apparent members of the group from New Hampshire enrolled using their military email addresses. At least two dozen others either reference their past military service in a "notes" section included in the database, or appear to have connections to the military based on publicly available social media profiles, news reports or obituaries.

“Have 20-yrs of firearms, riot control, and tactical training,” wrote an alleged member of the group from Danville in the notes section. “I am [a] strong believer of the Constitution” [sic].

Giuda, the state senator, said he served in the Marine Corps, U.S. Navy and worked for the FBI. He told NHPR he joined the Oath Keepers because he had previously taken oaths to defend the Constitution. But he said he distanced himself from the organization soon after its involvement in the 2014 armed standoff with federal authorities at a Nevada ranch owned by Cliven Bundy.

“I left that group years ago,” Giuda said in an interview. “I wasn’t comfortable with the way the group was being run.”

Online profiles and posts show the group appears to have successfully attracted a range of New Hampshire residents, including a financial planner, auto mechanics, IT professionals, gun brokers and engineers. Some of the people listed in the database also appear to have been involved in other right-wing political movements, including the New Hampshire Minutemen and the 9-12 Project.

Towns from the Seacoast to the North Country to the Monadnock region are represented in the database. Manchester, Salem, Nashua and Weare are home to the most names on the list.

While it isn’t clear what drew residents to join the Oath Keepers, some comments left suggest members were ready and willing to take up arms against the government.

“I could help behind the lines (If need be),” wrote an apparent member from Raymond, “or I know how to handle a weapon (quite well).”

'Tip of the patriotic spear'

Often classified by extremism analysts as part of the "Patriot/militia movement," the Oath Keepers emerged shortly after the election of President Barack Obama, warning of a globalist takeover and threats of government-run concentration camps in the United States. Members pledge to uphold the U.S. Constitution but also swear to reject a list of potential “orders” that they will not obey, many of which are rooted in allegations about the federal government.

“They really operate around a set of baseless conspiracy theories about the federal government working to destroy the liberties of Americans,” said Rachel Carroll Rivas, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights advocacy group that tracks extremist movements.

She said that there were signs from the group’s founding that armed conflict with federal authorities was inevitable, and that “the warning signs were all there.”

The group’s far-right anti-government messaging appealed to tens of thousands of members who joined local or state branches of the Oath Keepers, according to Carroll Rivas, helping it grow into one of the largest militia movements in the country. The group now charges $50 per year, or $1,000 for a lifetime membership.

In New Hampshire, members of the Oath Keepers previously attended county commission meetings to serve as observers, where their presence was reportedly welcomed by local officials. In 2010, state social workers took custody of a baby born to an Oath Keeper in Concord. While supporters of the group contended it was politically motivated, court documents revealed the man had a violent past including previous alleged abuse against children. In 2015, members of the Oath Keepers gathered outside the Armed Forces Career Center in Keene to serve as an ad hoc security force.

Nationally, the organization has garnered headlines not only for its participation in the January 6th riots, but also for its members taking part in armed standoffs at the Bundy Ranch and at federally owned properties in Oregon. In recent years members of the Oath Keepers have also turned up at racial justice protests, including in Ferguson, Missouri, often dressed in fatigues and carrying rifles. While claiming their presence was intended to ensure law and order, the militia members, who appear to have been largely white, were seen barreling into crowds of protestors, inflaming an already tense scene.

For activist Grace Kindeke with the American Friends Service Committee in Concord, participation in a group like the Oath Keepers by members of law enforcement further erodes trust in communities who have been harmed by racial bias.

“It speaks to a level of hypocrisy because I don’t think it is possible to serve the community and uphold the law … if you are specifically working with people who are subverting that, who do not believe that the law applies to them,” Kindeke said.

No policies prevent police from joining groups, but departments can act

“I am the Chief of Police of a small town in New Hampshire,” wrote Scott Young, then the chief of Strafford’s police department, in his membership note when he joined the Oath Keepers, according to the database obtained by NHPR. “I love the Second Amendment and I pass on to all of the citizens the importance of a arms citizenry” [sic].

Young, who is now employed as a part-time officer in Barrington after retiring from Strafford, said in an interview that when the Oath Keepers “first came out, I think their motives were good,” but then the group “started to go off the rails.”

He said he backed away from the group “a long, long time ago.”

When NHPR reached Rockingham County Deputy Sheriff Craig Charest, whose name appears in the Oath Keepers database, he said he couldn’t recall why he became a member.

“It’s been so long, I don’t even remember,” he told NHPR. “That was a long, long time ago.” Charest said he is no longer involved with the group.

The database doesn’t clarify when every alleged member joined the Oath Keepers, or whether they are still affiliated with the group. Some appear to have paid for lifetime memberships, while others paid dues on an annual basis.

In New Hampshire, there is no explicit prohibition on certified law enforcement officers joining a militia or extremist group, according to John Scippa, director of the New Hampshire Police Standards and Training Council. The accrediting body “does not have a rule or list that identifies any specific groups or organizations by name that officers are prohibited to have membership to,” he wrote to NHPR in an email.

Instead, he said the council has a regulation that prohibits the hiring of an individual “whose general character and reputation in the community are such that a reasonable person would doubt that the applicant would conduct him or herself with honesty and integrity and uphold the rule of law.”

Scippa noted that an acting officer’s certification can be brought under review by the council and potentially revoked for conduct that calls their fitness to serve into question. Local police departments are also allowed to set their own policies.

James Boffetti, an associate Attorney General for the state, wrote in an email to NHPR that his office has “not previously been provided with the information” obtained by NHPR, but that it “will look into the situation to determine whether any further action by this Office is necessary.” The state’s top law enforcement agency declined to answer a question about what steps it may be taking to prevent extremism within law enforcement in the state.

Law enforcement agencies, including in New York, New Jersey, Washington and Oregon, have launched investigations in recent months into officers whose names appear in the leaked Oath Keepers records.

In Grafton County, a police chief said he would launch an investigation after being informed by NHPR that an officer in his department with the same name and cell phone number appeared in the database. When reached by NHPR, the officer denied ever joining the group, and said he had “no idea” what the Oath Keepers are.

At the Hollis Police Department, all job candidates are asked a list of screening questions, including whether they’ve been members of a militia or a group seeking to overthrow the government. Hollis Chief Joe Hoebeke, who is also current president of the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police, said such screening is one way to root out candidates who may hold extreme views. But he noted that police officers don't forgo their right to freedom of speech, and freedom of association.

“We have to think about what we do on-duty, and what we do off-duty, and how that can impact not just ourselves as individual professionals, but the agency as a whole, and the profession as a whole,” he said. Building public trust, he said, “takes a lot of work, and it takes very little work to destroy it.”

For Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, membership in a group such as the Oath Keepers by law enforcement or elected officials raises concerns because “fundamentally, the ideals of the Oath Keepers are anti-democratic.”

While not every member, past or present, may have been preparing to storm the U.S. Capitol to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, he said the group’s core principles from its founding have been about opposing the federal government.

A member who also holds a position of power in the state, Lewis added, be it by wearing a badge or by holding public office, “is certainly not someone who can claim in good faith to be representing the people of New Hampshire, or anywhere else.”

NHPR’s Casey McDermott contributed reporting to this story. Click here for information on how NHPR reported this story on the Oath Keepers in New Hampshire.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

===

https://lawandcrime.com/jan-6-committee/jan-6-committee-says-donald-trumps-will-be-wild-tweet-followed-craziest-meeting-of-his-presidency-and-electrified-extremists/

Jan. 6 Committee Says Donald Trump’s ‘Will Be Wild’ Tweet Followed ‘Craziest Meeting’ of His Presidency and ‘Electrified’ Extremists

ADAM KLASFELD

Jul 12th, 2022,

Jan. 6 Committee — "will be wild" tweets

WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 12: Messages on Twitter appear on a video screen above members of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol during the seventh hearing on the January 6th investigation in the Cannon House Office Building on July 12, 2022 in Washington, DC.

In the early morning hours of Dec. 19, former President Donald Trump fired off a tweet of a only dozen words, but congressional investigators say the extremists who overran the U.S. Capitol weeks later viewed it immediately as a “call to arms.”

As anticipated, the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol focused its hearing on Trump’s ties to the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and QAnon conspiracy theorists. In that tweet on Dec. 19, Trump exhorted his followers to gather in Washington, D.C. on the day that a joint session of Congress had planned to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the election.

“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump wrote. “Be there, will be wild!”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a committee member who served as the lead prosecutor at Trump’s second impeachment, said that the “will be wild” tweet followed what he called the “craziest meeting of the Trump presidency.” Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his would-be special counsel Sidney Powell, and staunch loyalist Gen. Michael Flynn presented him with a plan to seize the voting machines.

In depositions, participants in that meeting described as “unhinged” and involved shouting and expletive-laden exchanges.[flynn offered to fistfight wall hanging lawyer?]

During that meeting, Trump also indicated that he wanted to appoint Powell, a conspiracy theorist behind a string of failed “Kraken” lawsuits, as special counsel and empower her to criminally prosecute people in relation to the 2020 presidential election.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who reportedly testified behind closed doors for more than eight hours on Friday, said in a videotaped deposition that he “vehemently opposed” the idea. He recounted seeing former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne there and didn’t recognize him. (Byrne resigned from the company in 2019, following revelations of his affair with Russian agent Maria Butina.) The idea was rejected after midnight, and Giuliani recounted branding opponents of the plan as “pussies.”

Trump fired off his tweet at 1:42 a.m. Eastern Time.

The post “electrified and galvanized his supporters, especially dangerous extremists like the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and other racist and white nationalist groups spoiling for a fight against the government,” Raskin noted.

The Justice Department’s prosecution of the Oath Keepers showed how the group’s Florida chapter leader viewed the post.

“He wants us to make it WILD that’s what he’s saying,” Kelly Meggs allegedly wrote in a Facebook post some three days after that tweet, according to an indictment released a little more than a month after the attack.

Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) said flatly: “This tweet served as a call to action, and in some cases as a call to arms, for many of President Trump’s most loyal supporters.”

The committee also highlighted ties between militia members and Trump ally Roger Stone, who used Oath Keepers members as bodyguards before Jan. 6.

Prosecutors have not charged Stone with any crimes related to the attack on the Capitol, but multiple Oath Keepers who guarded him — Robert Minuta and Joshua James — are being prosecuted in the seditious conspiracy indictment. James became the first Oath Keepers member in that case to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation. Brian Ulrich, from the extremist group’s Georgia chapter, followed. The federal judges presiding over the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys seditious conspiracy cases “reluctantly” agreed to delay both trials until later in the year, after prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed that the committee’s investigation required an adjournment.

At least three Oath Keepers members charged with seditious conspiracy have pleaded guilty to date, one of whom told prosecutors that he heard the group’s leader Stewart Rhodes try to reach Trump through an intermediary on the day of the attack. William Todd Wilson, now cooperating fully with the government, said in a statement of offense that he overheard the conversation with the intermediary during a meeting with fellow Oath Keepers members inside a private suite of D.C.’s Phoenix Hotel around 5 p.m. Eastern Time.

“Wilson heard Rhodes repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power,”prosecutor summarized in a statement signed by Wilson. “This individual denied Rhodes’s request to speak directly with President Trump. After the call ended, Rhodes stated to the group, ‘I just want to fight.'”

Shortly before the hearing, a now-incarcerated Rhodes offered through his attorney to testify before the committee — under certain conditions. Rhodes demanded to testify inside the U.S. Capitol, rather than from jail. He also wanted to be accompanied by his lawyer and speak to Congress live. The committee’s aides declined to comment on whether they have discussed the offer with Rhodes’s counsel.

The committee’s live witnesses typically speak to the lawmakers first behind closed doors.

some lnx

Justice Department’s prosecution of the Oath Keepers showed how the group’s Florida chapter leader viewed the post.

“He wants us to make it WILD that’s what he’s saying,” Kelly Meggs allegedly wrote in a Facebook post some three days after that tweet, according to an indictment released a little more than a month after the attack.

Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) said flatly: “This tweet served as a call to action, and in some cases as a call to arms, for many of President Trump’s most loyal supporters.”

The committee also highlighted ties between militia members and Trump ally Roger Stone, who used Oath Keepers members as bodyguards before Jan. 6.

Prosecutors have not charged Stone with any crimes related to the attack on the Capitol, but multiple Oath Keepers who guarded him — Robert Minuta and Joshua James — are being prosecuted in the seditious conspiracy indictment. James became the first Oath Keepers member in that case to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation. Brian Ulrich, from the extremist group’s Georgia chapter, followed. The federal judges presiding over the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys seditious conspiracy cases “reluctantly” agreed to delay both trials until later in the year, after prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed that the committee’s investigation required an adjournment.

At least three Oath Keepers members charged with seditious conspiracy have pleaded guilty to date, one of whom told prosecutors that he heard the group’s leader Stewart Rhodestry to reach Trump through an intermediary on the day of the attack. William Todd Wilson, now cooperating fully with the government, said in a statement of offense that he overheard the conversation with the intermediary during a meeting with fellow Oath Keepers members inside a private suite of D.C.’s Phoenix Hotel around 5 p.m. Eastern Time....

===

jim Arroyo, a member of the Oath Keepers in Yavapai County, claimed that CongressmanPaul Gosar said that the U.S. is in a civil war"

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A member of the Yavapai County chapter of the Oath Keepers, an extremist right-wing militia group that was involved in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, claimed in a recent YouTube video that Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar met with them and said that the U.S. is in a civil war.

"We did a meeting a couple of years ago where our elected representative from Washington Paul Gosar came out and we asked him flat out at that time, 'Do you think we’re heading into a civil war?'" Arroyo said in the video, which is titled "The Coming Civil War? Part 1" and was posted on November 22, 2020. "And his response to the group was just flat out, 'We’re in it. We just haven’t started shooting at each other yet'."

:{Phoenix New Times was unable to reach Arroyo for comment. Gosar, a Republican and diehard supporter of former President Donald Trump, who represents Arizona's 4th Congressional District, did not return New Times' multiple requests for comment:{. But other clues of a relationship with the group have surfaced. An image of Gosar standing near a person wearing Oath Keepers clothing emerged last summer. Also, one of Gosar's brothers, Dave Gosar, recently told the New York Times , (which first reported on Arroyo's video), that the congressman is closely affiliated with the Oath Keepers.}::{}:

“He’s been involved with anti-Muslim groups and hate groups,” Dave reportedly said. “He’s made anti-Semitic diatribes. He’s twisted up so tight with the Oath Keepers it’s not even funny.”

Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar spearheaded an effort to overturn the state's election results. Screenshot via C-SPANDave Gosar, a Wyoming attorney, did not respond to New Times' request for comment.

The Oath Keepers are a conspiratorial right-wing paramilitary group whose members believe that the federal government is tyrannical and conspiring trying to strip people of their constitutional rights. They encourage their followers to stockpile guns and ammunition and to organize local militias to prepare for an eventual civil war. The group was involved in past armed standoffs between ranchers and federal agencies, and Oath Keeper members have shown up with guns at Black Lives Matter protests in various cities.

Arroyo articulated this worldview explicitly in the November 20 video, stating that a "communist takeover" of the United States is occurring and that his group believes "whole-heartedly that we are already underway with a civil war in this country."

"It’s a deeply conspiratorial worldview. They believe the government is evil and if given the opportunity would immediately enslave the American people and take away their rights," said Alex Friedfeld, an investigative researcher with the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism. "When you have that maximalist framing it starts to justify more extreme measures."

In a later video posted on December 30 2020, Arroyo describes the Yavapai County Oath Keepers as the "largest active group in the Western United States." Arroyo is involved in the "biggest chapter" of Oath Keepers in Arizona, accord to Friedfeld.

The involvement of the Oath Keepers in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has been well-documented. Some estimate that at least 10 Oath Keepers members were part of the pro-Donald Trump mob that infamously breached the Capitol. And Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, was spotted at the Capitol.

So far, three people associated with the group have been charged in federal court with conspiracy and destruction of government property for their involvement in the attack on the Capitol. Federal prosecutors allege that the defendants communicated logistics for the attack prior to January 6 and discussed "joining forces with other Oath Keeper chapters." Two of the defendants also said in media interviews after the raid that they are members of the Oath Keepers.

Gosar publicly voiced sympathy for the rioters shortly after the Capitol attack occurred and has been the subject of scrutiny for his alleged affiliation with right-wing activists behind the attack.

"People look to politicians to be trusted figures within the community," Friedfeld said. "If it turns out that those comments are true, it would be deeply concerning because he’s essentially saying that politics are over, it’s civil war."

"When politicians do that they give conspiratorial ideas and dangerous ideas a sheer of legitimacy, they make them look not extreme," Friedfeld added. "By interacting with the Oath Keepers and by giving them legitimacy and validating their beliefs, Gosar, if this is true, is further normalizing extremist rhetoric and behavior, bringing it into the mainstream so that other people can be exposed to it with potentially dangerous results."

Other Republican elected officials in Arizona have ties to the Oath Keepers. One is State Representative Mark Finchem, who represents Arizona's 11th Legislative District and has described himself as a member in the past. He once served as the Arizona Coordinator for the Coalition of Western States, a group that backed the infamous armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016.

Published On: Wed, 24 Feb 2021

===

in August, right-wing racist fascism cosplay group the Oath Keepers were highlighted on CBS’s 60 Minutes. During an interview, Arizona Oath Keeper leader Jim Arroyo boasted, “Our guys are very experienced. We have active-duty law enforcement in our organization that are helping to train us. We can blend in with our law enforcement and in fact, in a lot of cases, our training is much more advanced because of our military backgrounds.” Oath Keeper founder Stewart Rhodes has also boasted a large swath of current and retired law enforcement in the group’s ranks. The fact that at least 31 law enforcement officers across 12 states were being investigated for their part in the attempted coup d’etat at the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, should have been a red flag for even the most naive among us.

On Thursday, Gothamist and WNYC reported on a joint investigation the two news outlets conducted of online records purporting to show links between the New York Police Department and a secret membership database of Oath Keepers. According to the outlets, “hacked membership records were sent to a transparency nonprofit group called Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), which shares leaked data with journalists and researchers.” The leaked data does not show whether or not a member is still active, but the current or one-time members in question are definitely still active in New York as officials and officers.

A spokesman for Mayor de Blasio told Gothamist that there will be an investigation: "The Oath Keepers are a vile, extremist, anti-government organization. An immediate internal investigation has been launched."

The Oath Keepers were founded by Stewart Rhodes in 2009 after President Obama’s inauguration, with calls by Rhodes for a new “civil war” to take place in our country. In recent years, with the rise of Donald Trump and the white supremacist foundation of the GOP becoming completely flagrant, the Oath Keepers have been able to reemerge from their doomsday-prepper caves in full jilted-bigot regalia. Being involved with the Oath Keepers is to be involved with a domestic terrorist organization, birthed out of racism against our country’s first, and so far only, Black president.

According to Gothamist, there are at least three New York public officials listed in the membership logs who claim they are no longer active members of the group. Their names were not published. However, the responses reporters got when they tried to contact various folks on the membership logs showed a real caginess that does not generally imply innocence. One of those matches was an active Staten Island officer who works in the Strategic Response Group—a group “deployed to quell protests, including those that erupted in New York City last year in response to the murder of George Floyd.”

When WNYC/Gothamist called the phone number associated with that membership entry, a man answered but did not confirm whether or not he was the officer in question. When asked if he was a member of the Oath Keepers, the man paused and asked how his number was obtained. He then declined to answer further questions.

Oswego County, NY’s 25th District Legislator Ralph Edward Stacy Jr., a Republican (gasp/eye roll), is also on the leaked membership list. He told Gothamist that it has been a very long time since he had filled out a membership for the never-not-racist-and-fascist organization, but that he hadn’t interacted with the group for over a decade.

“I do not condone what happened at the Capitol building and was not involved in what occurred,” said Stacy, who said he had never spoken to anyone involved with the organization and made clear he had not participated in the Capitol riot. “I certainly do believe in the right to peaceful assembly to protest one's cause, but I do not believe in any sort of criminal trespass or criminal activity as a means to an end.”

In March, New York Daily News reported that active-duty officer Sal Greco, who was getting money from Trump surrogate and super-sketchy rich guy Roger Stone, was being investigated for his part as a possible under-the-table bodyguard for Stone. Stone used Oath Keepers as bodyguards during his time in D.C. around the Jan. 6 insurrection. The Daily News report connected Greco to the Oath Keepers circumstantially and through a strange Venmo account.

Former Republican candidate for New York’s 6th Congressional district, Thomas Zmich, told Gothamist/WNYC that, while he had been part of the New York chapter of the Oath Keepers, that was a suuuuuper long time ago. [Cough] Three years ago, the New York chapter closed, which is when Zmich says he stopped being in the organization. While in Trump years that may feel like a lifetime ago, in the objective reality the rest of us live in, three years ago is three years ago.

None of this is surprising to readers around these parts. One of the larger national groups of fascist-wannabe seditionists congregated at our country’s Capitol on January 6 of this year. Law enforcement officials who fought bravely to defend our democracy testified in open court as to the disappointment and dangers they saw that day—including some insurrectionist cops. As the weeks have passed, more and more evidence has shown that Oath Keepers, amongst others, were very much involved in a conspiracy that day.

In recent weeks, the FBI has made it clear that they are pursuing a “seditious conspiracy” investigation. Oath Keepers have cut plea deals and more than a dozen other Oath Keepers are looking down the barrel of whatever the snitches and prosecutors have on them. This investigation is directly connected to the Oath Keepers’ presence in Washington D.C. on Jan 6.

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https://digbysblog.net/meet-the-bloggers/

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