[The Oath Keepers roster shows that 306 dues-paying Oath Keepers
members listed themselves as affiliated with DHS, including 21 who
said they were working for the agency at the time their names were
added.]
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HUNDREDS OF MEMBERS OF EXTREMIST GROUP OATH KEEPERS WORKED FOR U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, LEAKED ROSTER SHOWS  
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Kevin G. Hall
December 12, 2022
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
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_ The Oath Keepers roster shows that 306 dues-paying Oath Keepers
members listed themselves as affiliated with DHS, including 21 who
said they were working for the agency at the time their names were
added. _

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More than 300 people identifying themselves as current or former
employees of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or
affiliated agencies appeared on an internal roster of the Oath
Keepers, a right-wing anti-government group whose leader has been
convicted of sedition.

Among them is a man identifying himself as a “20 year Special
Agent” with the U.S. Secret Service who worked security for two
presidents, a person who said he was a “Current Supervisory Border
Patrol Agent,” and one who described himself as an IT employee at
the headquarters of the Transportation Security Administration.

The Oath Keepers roster analyzed by OCCRP and its reporting partner,
the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), shows that 306 dues-paying
Oath Keepers members listed themselves as affiliated with DHS,
including 21 who said they were working for the agency at the time
their names were added.

One hundred eighty-four identified themselves as having served in the
Coast Guard, 67 as having worked in DHS itself, 40 at Customs and
Border Protection or the Border Patrol, 11 at Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, and seven at the U.S. Secret Service, the agency charged
with protecting the president, vice president, and visiting heads of
state.

The new revelations are troubling, said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a
Democratic congressman who chairs the House Homeland Security
Committee.

“Extremism within our government is always alarming, but even more
so in a department with a law enforcement and national security nexus
like DHS,” said Thompson, who is also heading the U.S. House’s
investigation into the January 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The DHS, created in response to the September 11 attacks, boasts a
payroll of more than 250,000 federal employees spread out among
several agencies under its umbrella.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-racism group,
the Oath Keepers claim to have recruited tens of thousands of current
and former U.S. military and law enforcement employees. The Oath
Keepers’ top leader, Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, wrote in a 2009 blog
post that “men like this on the inside … can and do provide
information to expose what is going on,” adding that “we are
hearing from more and more federal officers _all the time_.”

Rhodes and several other Oath Keeper leaders were found guilty of
seditious conspiracy and other felonies in connection with the breach
of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump on
January 6, 2021.

A previously leaked list of Oath Keeper members was obtained and
analyzed by the Anti-Defamation League
[[link removed]],
an anti-extremism organization, earlier this year. The roster analyzed
for this story, which contains overlapping but more detailed data, was
obtained by reporters as part of a larger leak of Oath Keepers
documents.

Dating from 2009 to 2015, the files were spirited away by a former
member of the group’s inner circle. This source, who demanded
anonymity because of ongoing federal investigations, said federal law
enforcement agencies had access to the same information.

In addition to dozens of spreadsheets documenting at least $750,000
the organization brought in from membership dues alone, the documents
include other internal information, such as transaction data and
comments from members describing why they had signed up.

At the time many of them did so, the Oath Keepers did not yet have the
association with violence that it does today. The self-styled
defenders of the constitution gained national notoriety in 2014 and
2015 when they began showing up, heavily armed, in politically and
racially charged situations: First at stand-off between federal law
enforcers and an anti-government rancher in Nevada; then in Ferguson,
Missouri, amid protests that followed the death of an African American
teenager at the hands of a police officer.

The roster does not reveal the length of any individual’s
involvement with the group, or whether they remain members. But, since
it contains many applicants’ military or government service details
and other information, researchers from POGO and OCCRP were able to
analyze the list and attempt to contact them.

Several retired members of the Coast Guard who appeared on the roster
told OCCRP they had only been briefly involved with Oath Keepers. One
said he had paid dues just once. Another, Tom R. Kratville, said he
had grown disillusioned with the group.

“I am a gun owner and I was concerned about the 2nd Amendment, so I
thought what they were saying was reasonable,” said Kratville, who
is retired and lives in Colorado. “But when they turned out to be
radicals, I said, ‘Nope, I am out of here.”

While most people identified as former DHS employees distanced
themselves from the Oath Keepers when reached, an exception was Mark
Powell, 64. In Oath Keepers data he was identified as a former Border
Patrol agent, but the Mississippi native said he was actually a
military veteran. He said he still strongly supports Rhodes and the
Oath Keepers.

“I don’t believe he had [anything] to do with that in the
Capitol,” said Powell. “He was trying to keep everything peaceful,
but he was also trying to collect information on what the government
was doing during this.”

Reporters reached out to more than a dozen of the 21 members who had
self-identified as being on active duty at the time they signed up
with the Oath Keepers. Only one, Border Patrol supervisory agent
Matthew Whittaker, returned a call or email.

“I retired in 2014, views have not changed,” he wrote in an email,
declining to respond to further questions. The membership roster
showed he joined in April 2013.

The roster contains comments made by members about their motivation
for joining the group. “Most Border Patrol Agents are Oath keepers,
we just haven’t signed up yet,” wrote one, who declined to comment
when reached by reporters. “We are serious 2nd amendment guys, who
love the constitution.”

Another, who identified himself as working for DHS, wrote: “I may
not be military but I am a patriot an i love my country. I dont want
my 2 ½ yr. Old son to have to grow up in a communist country.”

The new findings are significant because they come as the Department
of Defense and Department of Homeland Security have each set up
working groups in an effort to root out extremism within their ranks.
The Jan. 6, 2021, siege on the Capitol building furthered fears about
insider threats posed by federal law enforcement and military
personnel belonging to extremist groups like the Oath Keepers.

“Given what we’ve learned since January 6th about the extent of
extremist beliefs and membership among elected officials and other
government employees, these numbers are deeply troubling, yet not
surprising,” said Rep. Jackie Speier, chair of the Military
Personnel Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said the agency
had no prior knowledge of the Oath Keepers data, but would review it.
“The absolute, most important function for this agency is our
no-fail mission to safeguard the continuity of the American
government,” he said.

Two were on active duty at the time Oath Keeper records said they
joined and were subject to agency insider-threat vetting and security
review, a person familiar with agency procedures confirmed.

Rhodes’ trial and conviction, as well as the prosecution of hundreds
of other Jan. 6th rioters, have highlighted the threat of extremists
within the police and military. According to the George Washington
University Program on Extremism, 31 Oath Keepers have been charged in
connection to the attack on the Capitol.

The Anti-Defamation League, in a September 2022 report, described
hundreds of police, military members and first responders among the
ranks of the Oath Keepers. It identified 373 people on the membership
list believed to be law enforcement officers on active duty.

The ADL’s report was based on a larger but less detailed data set of
Oath Keeper membership that did not contain the information on where
members said they worked, which is what allowed OCCRP and POGO to
identify them as DHS employees.

In 2021, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that
DHS had created a Domestic Violent Extremism Internal Review Working
Group. He acknowledged that “significant gaps that have impeded its
ability to comprehensively prevent, detect, and respond to potential
threats related to domestic violent extremism within DHS.”

A spokesman for DHS declined to discuss the new Oath Keepers data and
pointed to a report from March in which the agency announced steps to
address insider-threat risks.

The report revealed that there had been 35 allegations that DHS
employees had engaged in violent extremist activity between October
2019 and April 2021. Four incidents involved active participation in
or support for violent extremist activity, while the other 31 were
found to be unsubstantiated or mischaracterized. The report did not
provide specifics about the four incidents.

Fact-checking was provided by the OCCRP Fact-Checking Desk.

_As an investigative reporting platform for a worldwide network of
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journalists, OCCRP [[link removed]] is reinventing
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While upholding the highest journalistic ethics and editorial
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OCCRP also partners with advocacy groups
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We see a future where corruption and organized crime are drastically
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citizenry, increased accountability, and sharply higher costs for
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_OUR THEORY OF CHANGE:_

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and serves as a catalyst that arms others with the information needed
to drive positive change. As INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS, we expose
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_Also published by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) (United
States, in English
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