Oath Keepers

Oath Keepers is an American far-right anti-government militia whose leaders have been convicted of violently opposing the government of the United States, including the transfer of presidential power as prescribed by the United States Constitution. It was incorporated in 2009 by founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a lawyer and former paratrooper. In 2023, Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years for seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 United States Capitol attack, and another Oath Keepers leader, Kelly Meggs, was sentenced to 12 years for the same crime. Three other members have pleaded guilty to this crime, and four other members have been convicted of it.

Research on their membership determined that two-thirds of the Oath Keepers are former military or law enforcement, and one tenth are active duty military or law enforcement. The group encourages its members to disobey orders which they believe would violate the U.S. Constitution. Most research determined the Oath Keeper membership to be approximately 5,000 members, while leaked data showed Oath Keepers' rosters claiming membership of 38,000.

Several organizations that monitor U.S. domestic terrorism and hate groups describe the Oath Keepers as a far-right extremist or radical group. In 2015, Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described the group as "heavily armed extremists with a conspiratorial and anti-government mindset looking for potential showdowns with the government". According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the group is anti-government and extremist. Former SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok describes the group as "an anti-government group who believe in a wild set of conspiracy theories". The FBI describes the Oath Keepers as a "paramilitary organization" and a "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." Some researchers have suggested the Oath Keepers' organizing principle is as a "profit-maximizing firm", rather than the hierarchical and close-knit "club" structure that many other groups in these categories show.

Oath Keepers were present wearing military fatigues during the 2014 and 2015 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, when members armed with semi-automatic rifles roamed streets and rooftops.

By September 2021, twenty members had been indicted for federal crimes related to the January 2021 Capitol attack, with four pleading guilty.

The organization was subpoenaed by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in November 2021. Eleven members of the organization, including its founder and leader Stewart Rhodes, were indicted for seditious conspiracy in January 2022. Nine were convicted of this rare charge, as follows: By late April, two of the indicted members had pleaded guilty to it, and a third member who had not been named in the initial indictment pleaded guilty to it on May 4. On November 29, a jury found Rhodes and one co-defendant guilty of it. Four more Oath Keepers were convicted of it by a separate jury two months later.

Writing in "The New York Times" Alan Feuer said that the Oath Keepers "barely exists anymore. Its founder, Stewart Rhodes, no longer appears in public as often as he once did at far-right demonstrations or standoffs with the government."

The Oath Keepers has been identified as one of the "largest and most prominent organizations of the militia/patriot movement." Oath Keepers was founded in March 2009 by Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate, former U.S. Army paratrooper, and former staffer for Republican Congressman Ron Paul. The SPLC lists Rhodes as a known extremist. Under Rhodes's leadership, Oath Keepers in 2013 instructed its members to form "Citizen Preservation" teams, including militias, to operate in communities across the country to defend Americans from government intentionally letting the country descend into chaos then declaring martial law and scrapping the constitution, stating that "They are preparing to control and contain us, and to shoot us, but not preparing to feed us."