The Oath Keepers are a far-right national militia organization formed in 2009 in reaction to Barack Obama’s 2008 electoral victory. The group arose from the broader far-right reaction to the United States’ first Black president that also drove the rise of the Tea Party and a resurgence of the contemporary militia movement. The group’s members are also well-steeped in the prepper community and many members thereby also hold extremely conspiratorial worldviews. Since 2009, the group has been highly active in paramilitary operations, bomb threats, and more.
Below, you will find all MilitiaWatch articles mentioning the movement.
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.
After the storming of the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021, media has been trying to figure out who the Oath Keepers are. 60 Minutes, 3 months after the riot, interviewed 4 members of a group calling themselves the “Arizona Oath Keepers”. In mid-June 2021, 60 Minutes re-aired the segment, providing the group more airtime. These Oath Keepers were four members of a Prescott, Arizona area organization known as the Yavapai County Preparedness Team.
Who are the Yavapai County Preparedness Team (YCPT)? The YCPT is an Arizona Oath Keepers chapter, previously directly part of the Stewart Rhodes-led national organization but now autonomous and independent. They still, however, call themselves Oath Keepers and use Oath Keepers iconography and ideology to describe themselves. This article explores their structure, their relationships to the right, and where it looks like they are heading.
This is a very long article, so MilitiaWatch has prepared a first “TL;DR” (too long; didn’t read) that hits at some of the core points from this investigation without the goose chases and too-in-the-weeds writing the MW audience might be accustomed to at this point. You can read that here:
Happy Memorial Day to those who have or whose family and friends have lost life and limb in US wars. Here’s another weekly update from MW, which includes the following:
J6 arrestee says cops didn’t tell him not to storm the capitol
National Guard leaves DC
Bundy announces run for governor
Grandmaster Jay and Kyle Rittenhouse have legal updates