Stewart Rhodes, the founding father of the Oath Keepers, a far-right armed forces, introduced in November 2025 that he’s going to relaunch the crowd after it disbanded following his jail sentence in 2023.
Rhodes was once sentenced to 18 years in jail for seditious conspiracy and different crimes dedicated all through the U.S. Capitol rebellion on Jan. 6, 2021.
In January 2025, President Donald Trump granted clemency to the over 1,500 defendants convicted of crimes attached to the storming of the Capitol.
Trump didn’t pardon Rhodes – or some others discovered in charge of probably the most severe crimes on Jan. 6. He as an alternative commuted Rhodes’ sentence to time served. Commutation handiest reduces the punishment for against the law, while a complete pardon erases a conviction.
As a political anthropologist I learn about the Patriot motion, a choice of anti-government right-wing teams that come with the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Mothers for Liberty. I specialise in alt-right ideals, and I’ve interviewed other folks lively in teams that participated within the Capitol rebellion.
Rhodes’ plans to relaunch the Oath Keepers, in large part composed of present and previous army veterans and legislation enforcement officials, is essential as a result of it’s going to function an outlet for individuals who have felt misplaced since his imprisonment. The gang claimed it had over 40,000 dues-paying individuals on the top of its club all through Barack Obama’s presidency. I imagine that many of those other folks will go back to the crowd, empowered via the loss of any considerable punishment because of the pardons for crimes dedicated on Jan. 6.
In my interviews, I’ve discovered that army veterans are handled as privileged individuals of the Patriot motion. They’re venerated for his or her provider and armed forces coaching. And that’s why I imagine many former Oath Keepers will rejoin the crowd – they’re thought to be integral individuals.
Their oaths to serving the Charter and the folks of the US are handled as sacred, binding individuals to an ideology that ends up in motion. This motion contains supporting other folks in conflicts in opposition to federal businesses, organizing citizen-led crisis reduction efforts, and protesting election effects like on Jan. 6. The individuals’ power effects from their shared oath and the reverence they really feel towards retaining it.
Who’re the Oath Keepers?
Rhodes joined the Military after highschool and served for 3 years sooner than being honorably discharged after a parachuting coincidence in 1986. He then attended the College of Nevada and later graduated from Yale Regulation Faculty in 2004. He based the Oath Keepers in 2009.
Oath Keepers takes its title from the united statesmilitary Oath of Enlistment, which states:
“I, , do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States …”
From left, Stewart Rhodes, chief of the Oath Keepers, and Enrique Tarrio, Joe Biggs and Zach Rehl, individuals of the far-right team the Proud Boys, rally out of doors the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 21, 2025.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photographs
Knowledgeable via his legislation background, Rhodes puts a specific emphasis at the a part of the oath that states they are going to protect the Charter in opposition to all enemies, international and home.
Rhodes was once alarmed, believing that the 2d Modification rights of electorate had been being violated. On account of this, he argued that individuals who had army or legislation enforcement backgrounds had a criminal responsibility to refuse what the crowd considers illegal orders, together with any that violated constitutionally secure rights, akin to the proper to endure fingers.
Within the Oath Keepers’ philosophy, any person who violates those rights are home enemies to the Charter. And should you apply the orders, you’ve violated your oath.
Explaining the beginning of the crowd at the right-wing web page “The Gateway Pundit” in November 2025, Rhodes mentioned: “… we were attacked out of the gate, labeled anti-government, which is absurd because we’re defending the Constitution that established the federal government. We were labeled anti-government extremists, all kinds of nonsense because the elites want blind obedience in the police and military.”
Rebuilding and restructuring
In 2022, the nonprofit whistleblower website online Disbursed Denial of Secrets and techniques leaked greater than 38,000 names at the Oath Keepers’ club record.
The Anti-Defamation League estimated that just about 400 of the names had been lively legislation enforcement officials, and that over 100 had been serving within the army. A few of these individuals had been investigated via their offices however by no means disciplined for his or her involvement with the crowd.
Some individuals who weren’t army or legislation enforcement did lose their jobs over their association. However they held government-related positions, akin to a Wisconsin alderman who resigned after he was once known as a member.
This breach of privateness, paired with the dissolution of the group after Rhodes’ sentencing, will assist form the crowd going ahead.
In his interview with “The Gateway Pundit,” the place he introduced the crowd’s relaunch, Rhodes mentioned: “I want to make it clear, like I said, my goal would be to make it more cancel-proof than before. We’ll have resilient, redundant IT that makes it really difficult to take down. … And I want to make sure I get – put people in charge and leadership everywhere in the country so that, you know, down the road, if I’m taken out again, that it can still live on under good leadership without me being there.”
There was once a identical shift in organizational construction with the Proud Boys in 2018. That’s when their founder, Gavin McInnes, stepped clear of the group. His departure got here after a gaggle of Proud Boys individuals had been all in favour of a battle with anti-fascists in New York.
Contributors of the Oath Keepers stand at the East Entrance of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
AP Picture/Manuel Balce Ceneta, Report
Prosecutors sought after to take a look at the crowd as a gang. McInnes, subsequently, distanced himself to strengthen their protection that they weren’t in a gang or prison group. In the long run, two of the individuals had been sentenced to 4 years in jail for tried gang attack fees.
Some Proud Boys individuals have advised me they have got since all in favour of growing native chapters, with in-person recruitment, that keep up a correspondence on personal messaging apps. They target to offer protection to themselves from criminal classification as a gang. It additionally makes it tougher for investigators or activist newshounds to watch them.
That is known as a mobile taste of group, which is well liked by insurgency teams. Those teams are arranged to rise up in opposition to authority and overthrow authorities constructions. The mobile organizational taste does no longer have a strong hierarchy however as an alternative produces smaller teams. All of them adhere to the similar ideology however will not be immediately related.
They’ll have a pace-setter, nevertheless it’s steadily stated that they’re simply a figurehead, no longer any person giving direct orders. For the Proud Boys, this might be former chief Enrique Tarrio. Proud Boys individuals I’ve spoken to have referred to him as a “mascot” and no longer their chief.
Having a look forward
So what does the Rhodes interview point out about the way forward for Oath Keepers?
Contributors will proceed supporting Trump whilst additionally recruiting extra retired army and legislation enforcement officials. They’re going to create an organizational construction designed to survive Rhodes. And in keeping with my interactions with the far-right, I imagine it’s most likely they are going to create an organizational construction very similar to that of the mobile taste for organizing.
Past that, they’re going to take a look at to possess their IT, which contains web hosting their web pages and in addition the use of relied on on-line income turbines.
This may occasionally most likely supply added safety, protective their club rolls whilst making it harder for legislation enforcement businesses to research them one day.
