Oath Keepers

The Oath Keepers is an American right-wing antigovernment organization whose members are often drawn from current and former law enforcement officers or military veterans. The Oath Keepers formed in 2009, at a time when right-wing perception of government infringement on rights was reaching new heights. The organization derives its name from its members’ promise to keep their oath to protect the US Constitution, no matter the cost, and not to enforce laws or directives that infringe on the US Constitution. Members of the Oath Keepers were identified as part of an insurrection against the US government on January 6, 2021, when a mob loyal to President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol Building with a goal of overturning the 2020 presidential election results. In November 2022 two members of the Oath Keepers, including the organization's founder, were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Background

The Oath Keepers were founded by a military veteran named Stewart Rhodes. Rhodes wanted to become a Green Beret, but after a spinal injury was discharged from the military. He then held a number of odd jobs before enrolling in college. He eventually attended Yale University, where he won an award for an essay he wrote about the Bill of Rights. When Rhodes graduated, he moved to Montana and focused on helping people who he believed had been mistreated by the government.

In 2005, Rhodes witnessed the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when the US military and law enforcement officers overstepped people’s constitutional rights, specifically by seizing firearms from citizens. These events worried Rhodes, who believed that the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) was an important part of American life. After Barack Obama was elected president, Rhodes and many other right-wing activists became even more concerned about the government taking away their rights. Rhodes was motivated to start an organization with others holding similar views.

In April 2009, Rhodes traveled to an event in Massachusetts commemorating the anniversary of the first shots fired during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Rhodes asked the people at the event to reaffirm their oath to defend the Constitution. He was joined by other right-wing and militia figures. They included Mike Vanderboegh, who had founded the right-wing militia the Three Percenters, which claimed that it took just three percent of the population to fight and win the American Revolution. The Oath Keepers first made national headlines in 2014 when a number of them traveled to Ferguson, Missouri, where protests and riots were taking place after police killed Michael Brown, a young Black man. Oath Keepers armed with semiautomatic weapons posted themselves on top of buildings, reporting that they would shoot anyone who tried to destroy private property. Although the group reports that it is not interested in race issues and does not welcome racists, it has been linked to other alt-right extremist groups and been accused of harboring White nationalists. Overt White supremacists, however, have criticized the group for not using race as a determining factor in membership.

Overview

Less than a decade after its founding, the Oath Keepers claimed to have roughly 35,000 members. The organization has attempted to keep much of the information about its rank and file a secret, in part to protect the identity of those involved. Nevertheless, leaked information about the group’s makeup has indicated that nearly two-thirds of its members have a military or law enforcement background. Some members are active-duty military or current members of federal, state, and local law enforcement. Rhodes and the Oath Keepers have targeted law enforcement members as recruits for the organization because Rhodes believes they should disobey orders that conflict with the Constitution.

Rhodes created a list of actions and rules that Oath Keepers must swear to follow. The first rule on the list is, “We will not obey any order to disarm the American people,” indicating that the organization’s most valued principle is to defend firearm ownership in the United States. The other rules on the list indicate that group members will not conduct warrantless searches, impose martial law without the governor’s consent, force American citizens into detention camps, or infringe on free speech.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are critics of the Oath Keepers. Members of these groups claim that the Oath Keepers are a right-wing, patriot-revival group, similar to other groups of the early 1990s that inspired Oklahoma City terrorist and mass murderer Timothy McVeigh. Some members of the Oath Keepers have been charged with crimes against the government. For example, one member was charged for trying to take over a Tennessee courthouse to free a man who had been arrested after he attempted a “citizen’s arrest” on a judicial official who refused to investigate President Barack Obama’s citizenship. Such incidents indicate that the Oath Keepers are driven more by right-wing ideology than a desire to protect the Constitution.

Rhodes himself has been accused of supporting far right ideology over the Constitution and Bill of Rights. President Donald Trump, who was elected president in 2016 after Obama’s second term in office, garnered a great deal of admiration and support from right-wing militias and other organizations. When Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joseph Biden, Trump and his supporters falsely claimed that he had lost because of voter fraud. Rhodes and others in right-wing militias support Trump and his false claims. On January 6, 2021, Trump held a rally in the morning in Washington, DC, purportedly to protest Congress’s certification of the presidential election results. Around 1:00 p.m., Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Five people died during the riot and more than one hundred were injured. Some rioters were allegedly Oath Keepers, though the organization acknowledged only one member had participated in the riot. This member was accused of conspiracy against the Constitution, which the group vehemently denied since its stated goal is to protect the Constitution. Some members were also accused of involvement in planning the insurrection during the weeks following the election.

In November 2021 the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, which was investigating the storming of the Capitol, subpoenaed the Oath Keepers organization. In January of the following year, Rhodes and a number of other Oath Keepers were indicted on charges of seditious conspiracy. By September 2022 three Oath Keepers had plead guilty to the charges; that month, jury selection began for the trials of several other Oath Keepers, included Rhodes. In late November, following the conclusion of these trials, Rhodes and one other Oath Keeper were convicted of seditious conspiracy and three other Oath Keepers were found not guilty. This marked the first successful prosecution of a sedition charge in the US since 1995 and, at that point, the most substantial criminal conviction out of the hundreds of criminal cases stemming from the attack on the Capitol.

Bibliography

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O’Rourke, Ciara. “How Oath Keepers Are Quietly Infiltrating Local Government.” Politico, 9 Dec. 2020, www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/09/oath-keepers-far-right-group-infiltrate-local-government-texas-443773. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.

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