OathKeepers

About OathKeepers

Oath Keepers is a far-right anti-government organization founded in 2009 by Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate and former Army paratrooper. The group recruits primarily from current and former military, law enforcement, and first responder communities, encouraging members to pledge they will refuse orders that violate the U.S. Constitution as they interpret it. The FBI has described Oath Keepers as a “paramilitary organization” and “large but loosely organized collection of militia who believe that the federal government has been coopted by a shadowy conspiracy that is trying to strip American citizens of their rights.” The Anti-Defamation League characterized the group as “heavily armed extremists with a conspiratorial and anti-government mindset looking for potential showdowns with the government.” The Southern Poverty Law Center noted the organization espouses theories associated with the sovereign citizen and posse comitatus movements. Multiple Oath Keepers members participated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol; twenty members were federally indicted by September 2021, with four pleading guilty. Founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy in November 2022 and sentenced to 18 years in federal prison. In Idaho, Oath Keepers maintained active chapters particularly in the northern panhandle region.

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