This post is a follow-up from a previous MilitiaWatch exploration of the Yavapai County Preparedness Team, a dissident Arizona Oath Keepers chapter. The previous piece is available here:
As mentioned in the above piece, MilitiaWatch collected and transcribed the meetings of dozens of YCPT gatherings in the Prescott area. Most of the speaking is done by the YCPT’s founder and leader, Jim Arroyo. This post is meant to show the group leader’s public discussion of the founder and national leader of the Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes.
Rhodes mentions by Jim Arroyo
(Most of this is auto-generated, but seemed to be pretty accurate and only required minimal editing on the part of MilitiaWatch)
The below quotes were based on transcript searches of “Rhodes”, “Stewart”, “Stuart”, and “Roads”. These transcripts were based on a June 2021 MilitiaWatch investigation into the YCPT and how its new direction could be representative of the dissident Oath Keeper movement (TL;DR here). The group has also been recently mentioning MilitiaWatch in some of their meetings such as this “clue” about this project or Jim’s recognition of the work MilitiaWatch has been doing.
Mentions of Stewart are in order below, from the end of March 2020 through in June 2021 (updates will be added).
31 March 2020
“Exactly. That’s what makes the Oath Keepers in our unusual organization and that we have been successful. And the Yavapai County chapter specifically, is the largest active chapter in the United States that came from Stewart Rhodes himself at national, and we our numbers are in the 110 120. consistently, we bring in a lot of former professionals. And we don’t charge for this training. We take up a donation at the meetings because we give a donation to the church, excuse me for the use of the building. But basically, anyone can come in.”
11 July 2020
“We couldn’t incorporate under Oath Keepers.org, because there’s no provision to do so that’s a separate corporation. So Stewart Rhodes gave us authorization to create our own corporation to operate to be able to do other things that we could not do under Oath Keepers”
12 September 2020
“At the national level, they call it ‘Operation to Defend America’. We had already begun our program before Stewart put that out. So we’re still part of that we’re underneath that overall umbrella. But our program is called Operation Guardian. And the concept was to provide an armed detachment that can deploy when these screwballs decided to get together and start burning cities and patrol cars and kill police officers.”
10 October 2020
“We are not a militia folks. We’ve never been Stewart Rhodes has put that out for day one. We’re on our 11th year of operation all around the country constantly reminding people we are not a militia. We have no rank structure. We have no uniforms. We have no authority from the state government, the county government from anybody to be a militia. And every day in the media, you’re seeing it that we’re an Oath Keeper right wing extremists antigovernment conspiratorial militia.”
12 December 2020
“The reason we didn’t incorporate under Oath Keepers is that’s already in Nevada Corporation. So Stewart Rhodes told us to start your own Corporation, and bring Oath Keepers in underneath that banner. And that way you can do whatever you need to do, including we’re able to get a bank account, a checking account, all that sort of stuff, which which helps a lot. So that’s the difference.”
Later:
“Now, Stewart Rhodes was on Mike Adams and anybody see the interview went about an hour. Okay. And you heard a mention right? What do you say, start forming up your groups and protect your neighborhoods stop. That’s where it is. This has always been the problem with Oath Keepers. At the national level, they got these great ideas, but that never goes any further than that. And it was always left for those of us down here in the trenches to figure it out. Well, I’m the guy in the trenches that’s figured it out.
9 January 2021
“So Stewart Rhodes told us to start up our own corporation, we’re still Oath Keepers this is just a corporation, it allows us to get insurance if we need it, because in order to get insurance, you have to be an entity. And as the Yavapai County chapter of Oath Keepers. We are not an entity. That’s just the title.”
25 January 2021
“Any questions now? on anything? You’ve heard about Oath Keepers? About Stewart being arrested? That’s all garbage? I didn’t get any hard and fast. That Stewart was arrested? Yes. Some Oath Keepers have been arrested. Those are the ones involved in the professional dumbass contest that took place in Washington DC in the Capitol Building. So there were a few arrests made? Yes, there were Oath Keepers that were inside there. We cannot tell you how stupid that is to be involved in even anything near that. But as far as we know, Stewart has not been arrested yet. He’s he’s not keeping a low profile the websites down there’s no way we can’t even contact him. And when you run an organization of 35 to 40,000 people and even a small percentage wants to get you on the phone, your phone rings off the hook. So even for state leadership, it’s nearly impossible to get ahold of him.”
13 February 2021
“So for those of you who don’t know what happened in Washington, DC, a number of individuals with the IQ of a hockey score, decided that entering the Capitol building by force during a legislative session was a good idea. Okay, this is brain damage beyond anything I’ve ever seen. This was dumb, underlying, yet it happened. And Oath Keepers was involved. There were at least 10 that they’ve identified, three have been arrested, and they’re looking for the others to an include. Stewart Rhodes, okay, he did not as far as we know, breach the capital, but he was just outside the building. He was there, what his involvement was. All I can tell you is that the affidavit put forth by the FBI for the arrest warrants is posted online, you can read it, it’s about 21 or 22 pages. And Stewart’s name was listed in there along with the other three individuals that are being prosecuted Currently, the New York Times ran a pretty good story complete with photographs of the people that they’re looking for.”
24 April 2021
“Stewart told us we could incorporate under a different name, still run the same program, but it gives us more advantages. So virtually every single thing we do under our original Oath Keepers format we do under this.”
Later:
“What we are planning on doing is suspending our relationship with or without right quit there still Oath Keepers what we’re going to do, we want to give the National Board of Directors the opportunity to one do the right thing. If this turns out the way we think it’s going to go. It’s also based on the outcome of the investigation by the federal government into Stewart Rhodes, the president of Oath Keepers.org. If in fact he is charged, convicted prosecuted, then we are going to have to go a different direction. But what we want to do, does this affect any of you in here right now? No, nothing is going to change. Okay, you don’t have anything to do with the National Leadership that’s only for the state leadership to deal with. But we are still going to be Oath Keepers no two ways about it, we will just temporarily suspend our relationship, so that the rest of the media and everybody else out there looking at what we’re doing with Oath Keepers.org until this investigation is done.”
22 May 2021
“And you heard Stewart Rhodes talking to Bill O’Reilly about that. And that’s absolutely true. Bill was kind of stuck. What do you mean soldiers can disobey an order? Yeah, that’s absolutely true.”
12 June 2021
“As far as we know, Stewart Rhodes has not been arrested. I have not gotten any hard data on that. Actually, he’s kind of in the wind. We have not heard anything solid in months. So I don’t really know where he’s at or what the situation is. But I’ll guarantee you if they arrest the national founder of Oath Keepers, it’ll be all over the media, you’ll know about it. We’ll keep you up to date.”