Hundreds Of Elected Officials, Police Chiefs On Leaked Oath Keepers List

Hundreds of U.S. law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members were included on a leaked list of members of a far-right extremist group accused of playing a vital role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to a report released on Wednesday (September 7) that was obtained by the Associated Press.

A total of 38,000 names included on Oath Keepers membership lists were leaked by the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism, which identified more than 370 of the individuals listed as having currently worked in law enforcement agencies -- among them police chiefs and sheriffs -- as well as more than 100 people currently serving in the military.

The leaded data also included more than 80 individuals who were running for or served public office as of last month.

The data, which was compiled into a database and published by Distributed Denial of Secrets, a transparency collective, raises new concerns about those working, serving and protecting the U.S. despite being associated with extremists, specifically as false information about the 2020 election continues to lead to threats of violence against lawmakers and institutions.

“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 states. 

An individual's name appearing on the Oath Keepers' database doesn't confirm that they were ever an active member of the group or share its ideology as some told the AP that they were briefly members and are no longer affiliated, while others claimed they were never dues-paying members.

The Oath Keepers are a conspiracy theory-fueled group that vow to defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic," and promote the belief that federal government intends to take away civil liberties from citizens while painting its own members as defenders against tyranny, according to the AP.

More than two dozen people associated with the Oath Keepers -- including Stewart Rhodes, who founded the group in 2009 -- have been charged in relation to the January 6, 2021 insurrection.