More than 3,300 Texans were members of the Oath Keepers, report says

Sign up for The Brief, our day by day e-newsletter that retains readers in control on the most important Texas news.

More than 3,000 Texans — together with a North Texas constable and dozens of different elected officers, regulation enforcement officers, members of the armed forces and first responders — have been members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group that performed a distinguished position in the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, in keeping with an evaluation of leaked membership rolls.

The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism published a report Tuesday after reviewing extra than 38,000 names on a large cache of paperwork from the Oath Keepers that was leaked to transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets and launched final yr. The paperwork included chat logs, emails and membership rolls from 2020 and 2021. It’s unclear when the membership lists were final up to date.

The ADL’s report analyzed the place the members lived and labored and located that Texas had extra individuals listed in the Oath Keepers’ membership rolls than another state. Texas is the nation’s second-most populous state.

Texas additionally had the most individuals who were both elected officers, regulation enforcement officers, navy members or first responders, the report discovered. Of the Texas signups, 33 were regulation enforcement officers, 10 were members of the navy, eight were elected officers and 7 were first responders. No federal officers were listed in the membership paperwork.

Among the signups was Joe Wright, a constable in Collin County in North Texas and the highest-ranking elected official in Texas talked about in the ADL report. The ADL notes that Wright signed up for the group earlier than he took workplace for the first time and famous his authorities place: “Constable elect for Collin County Pct. 4 Constable’s office. Currently a Collin County deputy sheriff.”

Wright didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Wednesday. When the Oath Keepers’ paperwork were first leaked in October 2021, Wright told USA Today that he didn’t know a lot about the group when he joined.

“To be honest, I felt pressured to join it in this county for political support,” Wright mentioned. “The Oath Keepers, if you didn’t support them, you were going to get bad reviews.”

Wright mentioned he didn’t help the group and had not engaged since.

“I’m not into radical. I’m into doing my job,” he mentioned.

The Oath Keepers’ membership checklist doesn’t replicate the extent of the members’ involvement in the group. The ADL report notes that some might have been launched to a watered-down model of the group’s mission and plenty of have since left the group. Hundreds tried to cancel their memberships after the Jan. 6 riot, BuzzFeed News reported. But the ADL additionally factors out that the Oath Keepers have all the time been vocal about its extremist far-right views since its inception in 2009.

“Even for those who claimed to have left the organization when it began to employ more aggressive tactics in 2014, it is important to remember that the Oath Keepers have espoused extremism since their founding, and this fact was not enough to deter these individuals from signing up,” the report notes.

The Oath Keepers asks its members to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” The group, fueled by baseless conspiracy theories, claims that the authorities poses a risk to civil liberties. In actuality, former Oath Keepers spokesperson Jason Van Tatenhove — who has since left the group and speaks publicly about its risks — has mentioned the group is definitely “selling the revolution.”

On Jan. 6, 2021, the Oath Keepers descended on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to guide the siege difficult the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election. At least 26 members of the group have since been arrested in reference to the assault. They embrace Oath Keepers founder and chief Stewart Rhodes, a Texan who was arrested in January and is accused of conspiring to oppose the switch of presidential energy by pressure.

The fringe group has centered on recruiting present and former navy, police and first responders. The ADL report says that in written feedback offered to the Oath Keepers, some individuals in search of to affix the group supplied to make use of their positions of energy to assist the Oath Keepers in a range of methods. One member of the Idalou Police Department, exterior of Lubbock, mentioned he would use his place to introduce different regulation enforcement officers to Oath Keepers ideology via shows, in keeping with the report. The report doesn’t determine the particular person or say whether or not they were a police officer.

Idalou police officers didn’t reply to a request for remark Wednesday on whether or not the division has insurance policies concerning workers’s membership in extremist teams.

Members of the Oath Keepers listed in the paperwork additionally included Texans in different occupations. An legal professional with a regulation agency based mostly in East Texas advised the group that he “may be able to assist in legal matters,” the report mentioned. The ADL didn’t determine the legal professional.

More than 70 Texans have been charged for his or her roles in the Jan. 6 revolt, in keeping with a USA Today database. They embrace Guy Reffitt who was sentenced to 7 1/4 years in prison final month after prosecutors mentioned he “lit the match” for the riot.

North Texas has been a focal space for the investigation into the riot, with extra than a dozen space residents having been charged in the federal investigation into the assault, together with Kellye SoRelle, a lawyer for Oath Keepers based mostly in Granbury.

The full program is now LIVE for the 2022 Texas Tribune Festival, occurring Sept. 22-24 in Austin. Explore the schedule of 100+ mind-expanding conversations coming to TribFest, together with the inside observe on the 2022 elections and the 2023 legislative session, the state of public and better ed at this stage in the pandemic, why Texas suburbs are booming, why broadband entry issues, the legacy of slavery, what actually occurred in Uvalde and a lot extra. See the program.