Oath Keepers

The Oath Keepers emerged in 2009 as a national anti-government “Patriot” organization built principally around current and former military personnel, police officers, and first responders. Its founder, Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, argued that these people retained a lifelong duty to refuse government orders they personally considered unconstitutional.

The organization presented itself as a constitutional civil-liberties association. In practice, its worldview increasingly revolved around claims that corrupt elites, international institutions, or political opponents were preparing to disarm Americans, impose martial law, detain dissidents, or establish authoritarian rule. Armed deployments to political protests and confrontations with federal authorities gradually became central to its public identity.

The Oath Keepers differed from the Three Percenters in having a recognizable national organization, a dominant founder, membership dues, bylaws, and a special recruiting focus on people with military or law-enforcement experience. Nevertheless, the two movements occupied much of the same ideological and organizational environment and frequently appeared together.

The organization reached its historical turning point after the 2020 presidential election. Oath Keepers organized teams for Washington, stored firearms outside the District of Columbia, and sent members into the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Rhodes and several associates were subsequently convicted of seditious conspiracy. Those convictions produced long prison sentences and effectively destroyed the original national organization.

The legal situation has since changed substantially. President Trump commuted Rhodes’s sentence in January 2025. In 2026, at the Justice Department’s request, the convictions of Rhodes and seven other defendants were vacated and the indictment dismissed. Rhodes began trying to relaunch the Oath Keepers in late 2025, although available reporting has not established that the rebuilt organization has regained anything approaching its former reach.

Stewart Rhodes founded the Oath Keepers in early 2009, shortly after Barack Obama became president. Its first prominent public gathering was an April 19, 2009 “muster” at Lexington Green, Massachusetts—a location and date chosen for their association with the opening battles of the American Revolution.

Rhodes was an Army veteran, former congressional staffer, and graduate of Yale Law School. He designed the organization around the oath taken by military personnel and many public officials to support and defend the Constitution.

The group’s foundational message was that this oath does not expire when someone leaves government service. Members were instead supposed to decide for themselves whether an order was constitutional and refuse it if they concluded that it was not.This principle was expressed through the organization’s “Ten Orders We Will Not Obey.” The list anticipated such scenarios as:

• Federal confiscation of privately owned firearms
• Warrantless searches or mass detention
• Imposition of martial law
• Blockades of American cities
• Detention of American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants”
• Foreign troops being used for domestic policing
• Government attempts to place Americans in detention camps

Several of these ideas echoed older militia and “New World Order” conspiracy narratives rather than documented government plans. The list nevertheless served an important recruiting function: it reframed resistance to the government as fidelity to a supposedly higher constitutional obligation. 

The Oath Keepers described itself as a nonpartisan association defending constitutional government. It rejected the characterization that it was anti-government, arguing that opposition to an unconstitutional act was not opposition to legitimate government.

That distinction is important for understanding how members viewed themselves. Many were attracted by conventional concerns about gun rights, emergency powers, civil liberties, and military obedience—not necessarily by an initial desire to overthrow the government.

Outside researchers generally classify the Oath Keepers as part of the far-right anti-government militia movement, however. The reason is not simply its support for gun rights. It is the larger combination of:

• Conspiratorial assumptions about federal tyranny
• Paramilitary preparation
• Armed political deployments
• Claims that private citizens can decide when legitimate authority has become illegitimate
• Repeated suggestions that political disputes could culminate in civil war
• Willingness among its leadership to contemplate resistance by force

The group was not founded explicitly as a white-supremacist organization, and Rhodes publicly rejected white supremacy. Its central ideology was anti-government and conspiratorial rather than overtly racial. Over time, however, it operated alongside parts of the broader far right and increasingly portrayed left-wing demonstrators, antifascists, immigrants, Muslims, and other perceived enemies as components of a revolutionary threat. Analysts therefore caution against treating “not formally white supremacist” as meaning ideologically moderate. 

The defining feature of the Oath Keepers was its recruitment of:

• Military veterans
• Current and former police officers
• Sheriffs and deputies
• Firefighters
• Emergency medical workers
• Other first responders

Associate membership was also available to civilians without that background.

This recruiting strategy gave the organization two advantages. First, members with military or police experience brought skills involving weapons, communications, security, logistics, and small-unit movement. Second, association with uniformed professions gave the organization an appearance of institutional legitimacy that ordinary militia groups often lacked.

How large was it? Reliable membership figures are difficult to establish. The organization sometimes claimed tens of thousands of members. A 2021 data breach exposed records connected to more than 38,000 names, but that number should not be treated as the size of an active paramilitary force. The records included people who had joined years earlier, made a payment, asked for information, allowed their membership to lapse, or might never have participated in any activity. 

Analysis of the leaked database identified approximately:

• 81 people then holding or seeking public office
• 117 people identified as serving in the military
• 373 people identified as working in law enforcement

Those figures are significant, but inclusion in the database does not by itself prove that a person remained a member, agreed with every Oath Keeper position, or participated in unlawful conduct. 

Independent estimates of genuinely active membership were generally much lower than the group’s promotional claims—probably in the low thousands at its height, with a much smaller core prepared to attend armed deployments.

The Oath Keepers combined a national corporation and leadership structure with state and local chapters of uneven strength.

Rhodes was its dominant personality and strategic voice. Beneath him were:

• A national board and staff
• State chapter leaders
• County or local groups
• Ad hoc security and tactical teams
• Online forums and encrypted group chats
• Affiliated individuals who might participate without being formal members

This hybrid structure created ambiguity. National leaders could call for action while maintaining that local participants made their own decisions. Local chapters could also operate independently or leave the organization after disputes with Rhodes.

The group suffered repeated internal conflicts over finances, strategy, Rhodes’s leadership, and whether particular confrontations were tactically wise. Entire chapters sometimes broke away. It was therefore more centralized than the Three Percenters, but never a uniformly disciplined nationwide command.

For much of its history, the organization did not conduct attacks in the conventional sense. Its characteristic tactic was an armed protective deployment:

1. Identify a dispute as evidence of government tyranny or social collapse.
2. Offer “security” or protection to a person, business, demonstration, or community.
3. Send armed members, often in tactical clothing.
4. Establish patrols, observation posts, or a perimeter.
5. Present any government retreat or absence of violence as evidence that the deployment succeeded.

The group said these operations protected people and deterred disorder. Critics argued that unofficial armed groups entering volatile situations could intimidate participants, undermine legitimate law enforcement, and escalate conflicts.

This model also normalized the idea that private political organizations could deploy armed personnel to decide which laws or authorities deserved obedience.

Oath Keepers joined other militia activists supporting rancher Cliven Bundy during his confrontation with the Bureau of Land Management over unpaid grazing fees and the seizure of his cattle.

Armed activists confronted federal personnel, who eventually withdrew. The episode became a foundational victory narrative for the modern militia movement: sufficient armed resistance, its participants believed, could force federal authorities to back down.

The Oath Keepers later pulled away amid claims from Rhodes that the government might conduct a drone strike. Other militia participants accused the group of abandoning the confrontation. Even so, Bundy Ranch greatly increased the Oath Keepers’ public visibility.

During unrest following the police killing of Michael Brown, armed Oath Keepers positioned themselves around businesses and on rooftops. They said they were protecting property and journalists.

Images of heavily armed men patrolling a city during protests made the organization nationally recognizable. It also illustrated an enduring contradiction: a group suspicious of federal law enforcement strongly identified with police while treating movements protesting police misconduct as potential revolutionary threats.

The Oath Keepers provided armed support to miners involved in a regulatory dispute with the Bureau of Land Management. The organization presented the operation as protection against an unlawful federal seizure.

The event extended the Bundy Ranch model: transform a technical land-use dispute into a constitutional confrontation and surround the private parties with armed supporters. 

When militants led by Ammon and Ryan Bundy occupied the wildlife refuge, Rhodes called the seizure a serious tactical mistake because it made the militants appear to be the aggressors. Individual Oath Keepers nevertheless appeared around the conflict, demonstrating the limits of Rhodes’s control over the wider movement. 

As Donald Trump’s political prominence grew, the organization became more closely aligned with pro-Trump causes. Members attended rallies, offered security, and discussed monitoring polling locations.

This represented a significant evolution. The organization had originally claimed to stand above party politics; by 2020 its national leadership was functionally committed to Trump’s continued presidency.

Oath Keepers opposed pandemic restrictions and appeared around businesses reopening in defiance of public-health orders. During racial-justice demonstrations, armed members offered security to businesses and conservative organizations.

Rhodes increasingly described unrest as part of a Marxist or revolutionary campaign. These deployments brought the group into closer contact with Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and other militant networks. 

The decisive radicalization occurred after the November 2020 election.

Rhodes and other leaders accepted or promoted false claims that the election had been stolen. Rhodes publicly urged President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, portraying it as a mechanism through which Trump could call militia members into service against his political opponents.

This idea supplied a form of imagined legal authorization. Members could prepare for force while telling themselves that they would act only if the president called them forward.

According to evidence presented in court:

• Rhodes and associates began planning shortly after the election.
• They organized encrypted chats and travel to Washington.
• Members obtained tactical equipment and weapons.
• The group established “quick reaction forces,” or QRFs, outside Washington.
• Firearms were stored at a hotel in Virginia, where they could potentially be brought into the city.
• Teams coordinated security work around prominent Trump allies.
• Rhodes continued pressing for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act.

The firearms cache was not ultimately brought into Washington. Its importance lies in what it reveals about contingency planning: members had prepared an armed reserve that could be activated if events developed in the way they anticipated.

Oath Keepers performed several different roles that day.

Some provided security to Trump allies, including Roger Stone. Others gathered near the Capitol. Rhodes remained outside the building but entered the restricted Capitol grounds and communicated with members.

The most visually distinctive Oath Keepers action was the formation of a military-style “stack.” Members placed hands on the person ahead of them and moved in a coordinated line up the Capitol steps. Several entered through the east Rotunda doors.

A second Oath Keeper group subsequently entered the building. Other participants remained with the weapons stored in Virginia.

The organization did not command the entire Capitol crowd, and the attack was not solely an Oath Keeper operation. The evidence nevertheless demonstrated planning, coordination, communications, tactical organization, and an intention among key participants to prevent the lawful transfer of presidential power.

The Justice Department’s case alleged that the defendants conspired to oppose federal authority by force. Rhodes’s defense argued that the preparations were intended for lawful action if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act and that he did not order members to enter the Capitol. The juries ultimately delivered mixed verdicts across the different defendants and charges, but found Rhodes and five other Oath Keepers guilty of seditious conspiracy in two trials. 

In November 2022, a jury convicted:

• Stewart Rhodes, national founder and leader, of seditious conspiracy and other offenses
• Kelly Meggs, leader of the Florida chapter, of seditious conspiracy and other offenses

Three codefendants were acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other serious offenses.

In a second trial in January 2023, four more associates—Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett, David Moerschel, and Edward Vallejo—were convicted of seditious conspiracy. Oher Oath Keepers pleaded guilty or were convicted of related offenses. The resulting sentences included:

• Rhodes: 18 years
• Meggs: 12 years
• Jessica Watkins: 8½ years
• Kenneth Harrelson: 4 years
• Minuta: 4½ years
• Hackett: 3½ years
• Moerschel: 3 years
• Vallejo: 3 years

When sentencing Rhodes, the court applied a terrorism-related sentencing enhancement and described him as an ongoing danger. The prosecution portrayed the case as one of the most serious arising from January 6. 

The current legal posture is different from the one that existed immediately after the trials.

On January 20, 2025, President Trump:

• Commuted the sentences of Rhodes and a group of other Oath Keeper and Proud Boy defendants to time served
• Granted pardons to other January 6 defendants
• Directed the Justice Department to seek dismissal of pending January 6 cases

A commutation ordinarily ends or reduces punishment without erasing the conviction. Rhodes was released, but initially his conviction remained in place. 

The Justice Department later asked that the convictions of eight Oath Keeper defendants be vacated. In August 2026, Judge Amit Mehta granted the government’s request and dismissed the indictment with prejudice, although his opinion strongly criticized the decision.

Consequently, it is historically accurate to say that juries convicted Rhodes and the other defendants and that they served prison time. As of September 2026, however, those eight convictions have been vacated and the underlying indictment dismissed. The public trial record and factual evidence have not disappeared, but the judgments of conviction no longer stand. 

The prosecutions crippled the original national organization:

• Much of its senior leadership was arrested or imprisoned.
• Chapters became inactive or separated from the national group.
• Its website and communications infrastructure deteriorated.
• Former members blamed Rhodes for strategic and financial failures.
• The Oath Keepers name became inseparable from January 6.

Analysts consequently described the national organization as effectively defunct, although individual former members and local networks did not necessarily disappear.

After his release, Rhodes returned to political activism. In November 2025, he launched a new website and announced that he was rebuilding the Oath Keepers, including its membership system, private communications, and state and local chapters. The site remains active and explicitly advertises this rebuilding effort. 

There is also a separate entity called Oath Keepers USA, which states that it is a new legal organization and is not affiliated with Rhodes’s relaunch. This creates an important naming distinction: references to “the Oath Keepers” after 2025 may describe Rhodes’s reconstructed organization, the separate Oath Keepers USA entity, or informal former-member networks.

Public reporting through 2026 has not demonstrated that Rhodes’s relaunch has rebuilt the original organization’s national presence or active membership. A functioning website and membership solicitation are evidence of an attempted revival, not evidence of a restored national militia apparatus.

FeatureOath KeepersThree PercentersOriginFounded in 2009 by Stewart RhodesIdea developed around 2008 by Mike VanderboeghBasic conceptMilitary and police oaths require resistance to unconstitutional ordersA small armed minority can resist tyrannyStructureRecognizable national organization plus chaptersPrimarily a decentralized movement or labelLeadershipStrongly identified with RhodesNo single enduring national commanderRecruitmentFocused on veterans, police and first respondersBroader recruitment among gun-rights and militia supportersPrincipal imageConstitutional guardians refusing illegal ordersArmed citizens continuing the revolutionary traditionTypical activitySecurity details, armed deployments, disaster preparation and political mobilizationLocal militia training, protests, armed demonstrations and decentralized cellsJanuary 6 roleCoordinated national and state networks; organized “stacks” and QRFsSeveral separate Three Percenter factions and individuals participatedPost-January 6 effectNational organization largely collapsed after leadership prosecutions. Decentralization made the wider movement harder to dismantle as a single entity

The two were less like completely separate ideological camps than overlapping parts of the same ecosystem. A person could regard themselves as both an Oath Keeper and a Three Percenter, and chapters or individuals frequently collaborated.

The main distinction is that “Three Percenter” is principally an identity and ideology, whereas the original Oath Keepers was a membership organization dominated by a particular founder.

The Oath Keepers’ historical significance extends beyond its membership totals.

Its main innovation was to direct anti-government militia ideology toward people already entrusted with public authority or trained in the use of force. It encouraged them to substitute their own constitutional judgment for lawful institutional processes.

That model created three particular risks:

1. Institutional legitimacy: Police officers, veterans, and elected officials could make a fringe movement appear respectable.
2. Operational knowledge: Even a small number of trained members could organize communications, formations, security, logistics, and weapons more effectively than an untrained crowd.
3. Conflicting loyalty: Serving officials could be encouraged to decide that an elected government, court order, or command structure was illegitimate and that loyalty to the Oath Keepers’ interpretation of the Constitution should take precedence.

January 6 demonstrated how rhetoric about hypothetical resistance to future tyranny could evolve into organized action against an actual constitutional transfer of power.

The Oath Keepers began as a movement urging military and law-enforcement personnel to refuse unconstitutional orders. It evolved into a national hub connecting anti-government conspiracy theories, militia preparation, armed political activity, and increasingly partisan pro-Trump mobilization.

January 6 was not an inexplicable departure from its earlier history. It was an escalation of patterns already visible at Bundy Ranch, Ferguson, the Sugar Pine Mine, and the group’s political-security operations: private armed organization, rejection of federal legitimacy, and the conviction that members themselves could determine when extraordinary resistance was justified.

The original organization was shattered by the January 6 prosecutions. Rhodes is now free, his conviction and those of seven associates have been vacated, and he is trying to reconstruct the group. Whether that effort becomes a substantial organization or remains a marginal revival is not yet clear.