Are the Oath Keepers Run by the Government?

July 2, 2021 (EIRNS)—Revolver News writes that one question can crack the entire story of  the Capitol Hill “insurrection” on January 6, 2021: “What relationship do the FBI and Army Counterintelligence have with Stewart Rhodes?” Revolver’s exclusive feature, “Federal Protection of ‘Oath Keepers’ Kingpin Stewart Rhodes Breaks The Entire Capitol ‘Insurrection’ Lie Wide Open,” identifies Rhodes as the bafflingly still-unindicted “PERSON ONE” found in so many of the 500+ January 6 charging documents, compares his past behavior to that of known FBI agents, and concludes that the evidence they have assembled “overwhelmingly suggests Rhodes is a federal operative of some kind.” Indicting and investigating him would, in their view, reveal to the world what really happened on January 6, and that is why, to this day, he remains free.

EIR has learned from its own contacts over recent months that the structure of the Oath Keepers which Rhodes founded was extremely top-down. This is reported by a board member of the Oath Keepers, who told BuzzFeed that Stewart Rhodes “is the Oath Keepers.... It’s his organization, and he can do what he wants to do.”

It seems that January 6, 2021 was not the result of an intelligence failure, but rather the result of an intelligence set-up.

In the planning for January 6, Rhodes had repeatedly called for his supporters to prepare for violence. An example: “I do want some Oath Keepers to stay on the outside, and to stay fully armed and prepare to go in armed, if they have to. ... So our posture’s gonna be that we’re posted outside of D.C., um, awaiting the President’s orders. ... We hope he will give us the orders. We want him to declare an insurrection, and to call us up as the militia.” He spoke of this potential call from Trump as overriding D.C.’s gun laws. He said that the Oath Keepers had a Quick Reaction Force just outside the D.C. borders. He sent his followers a post titled “WHAT WE THE PEOPLE MUST DO,” including calls for civil disobedience, gathering in the capital, and storming the Parliament (in a reference to Serbia). “He [President Trump] needs to know from you that you are with him ... if [Trump] does not do it now while he is commander in chief, we’re going to have to do it ourselves later, in a much more desperate, much more bloody war. Let’s get it on now—while he is still the commander in chief.”

If 69-year-old county workers are arrested for entering the Capitol through an open door and leaving within 30 minutes; if 60 years’ worth of sentences are demanded in the case of someone who did not actually use bear spray against a Capitol Police officer; if over 500 people have been indicted, how on Earth could the leader of the Oath Keepers, who coordinated his group’s activities on January 6 along with multiple calls to be prepared for violence, be walking scot-free?

In fact, it was claims that the Oath Keepers would use violence to storm the U.S. Capitol that were used to justify the March decision to continue the deployment of National Guard troops in D.C.

Is the Oath Keepers organization just a honeypot trap?

What is the real background of Rhodes, whose official story has him joining the army just after high school, being discharged due to an injury, shooting himself in the left eye (blinding it), then working through community college, to university, to landing a spot at Yale Law School?

Revolver also looks at his involvement in the 2014 Bundy Ranch episode, where he called for armed supporters to come to Nevada to defend a farm family against the federal government, only to abandon them by claiming that Obama was going to use a drone to kill them all. When the going got tough, Rhodes got going, although numerous people—including the entire Bundy family and some of its supporters who smelled a rat in Rhodes—were arrested.

The article is extensive and deserves reading. The conclusion is that the Justice Department must explain why Rhodes has not been charged with the conspiracy he directed, and for which his underlings were charged as being participants.

If the Revolver allegations are true—and EIR has not independently verified the cited documents—it could be a powerful flank against the destruction of free speech.