Stewart Rhodes alternates between ‘deep paranoia and hysteria’: former Oath Keepers board members
Former leaders of the Oath Keepers detailed their concerns about founder Stewart Rhodes in new interviews with USA Today.
"Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the eye-patch wearing, gruff-talking Yale law school graduate who founded the extremist militia group the Oath Keepers, is currently the most high-profile defendant in the criminal prosecutions to come out of the January 6 insurrection," Will Carless reported. "Rhodes and 10 other Oath Keepers face 17 criminal counts including a charge of seditious conspiracy, which carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. Prosecutors allege he and the other Oath Keepers planned and trained for a violent uprising at the nation’s Capitol, with the goal of preventing Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. The conspirators stockpiled weapons in hotel rooms a few miles from the Capitol, conducted training drills and talked of bloody revolution, prosecutors allege."
The newspaper interviewed four former Oath Keepers board members and Tasha Adams, Rhodes' ex-wife and mother of his six children.
"Rhodes’ former allies told USA Today that he has spent much of the last 20 years in alternating periods of deep paranoia and hysteria. Adams, who was married to Rhodes for 24 years, and others, said the militia leader is obsessed with his own role in history and more interested in stroking his ego and filling his own pockets than he is in helping others," Carless reported. "Rhodes has used the Oath Keepers to stockpile expensive weapons, bulk up on prime steak and buy himself “hundreds of pairs of shoes” while his six children walked around their remote Montana cabin in thrift store sneakers, former board members of the group said."
READ: Trump has exposed a ticking time bomb within our electoral system
The report detailed how working for Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) brought him into the libertarian movement.
"Four former Oath Keepers board members said they watched in dismay as an organization they believed was founded on noble values collapsed into a dangerous group run by an unbalanced narcissist," the newspaper reported. "Accusations of financial mismanagement and waste have followed Rhodes throughout his tenure as leader of the Oath Keepers. All the former board members interviewed by USA Today described the same problems: Rhodes would constantly ask for more money out of the Oath Keepers accounts, and would spend on everything from steak to hotel rooms, to rifles."
In 2021, 60 Minutes interviewed frustrated Arizona Oath Keepers. Watch:
IN OTHER NEWS:Meta stocks fall after Google delivers a major blow to Zuckerberg's social media empire
Leave a Comment