Convicted Oath Keepers' founder announces militia's relaunch to enforce Trump orders
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes announced he was relaunching the right-wing militia group in hopes that President Donald Trump would press them into duty.
Rhodes was released from prison earlier this year when Trump commuted his 18-year sentence for seditious conspiracy, and Media Matters reported that he was planning to reform his paramilitary organization to help enforce federal immigration law.
"Right now, under federal statutes, President Trump can call us up as the militia if he sees it necessary, especially for three purposes: to repel invasions, to suppress insurrections, and to execute the laws of the union, and right now, we see all three of those in play," Rhodes told the right-wing Gateway Pundit outlet.
"We have — we're facing an ongoing invasion of this country, it has not stopped. We're facing an insurrection by the left, and we're also facing a direct blocking and resistance against enforcing federal law — federal immigration laws, attacking ICE agents, you know, trying to ram them and run them off the road, throwing bricks to their windows. All of that is going on, and so under those three purposes, he can call up the militia."
"The militia is all of us, so the National Guard is part of the militia, which is why it's completely lawful for him to use the National Guard as he has, and he should do more of that, I think, across the country," Rhodes added.
Rhodes was convicted in 2023 for his role in organizing and carrying out the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, but he was among nearly 1,500 participants who Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of shortly after returning to the White House.
"He could just say given the circumstances of an invasion, insurrection, and resistance against federal law being being enforced, I'm calling up the militia, ordering all the men to come together [in] every county, put the veterans in charge of training and organizing all the other men and just have them stand too and await his orders," Rhodes said.
"He can do that and I think he should do that, and so that's what I'll be advocating for from him. So from the bottom, from down the rank and file, we can let President Trump know that we're ready to serve, encourage him to do that, call us up as a militia, order us all to come together in our counties under his command, which gives you complete legal sanction to do what you're doing.