Stewart Rhodes announced last week that he is relaunching the Oath Keepers, his anti-government militia which virtually disappeared after dozens of its members—including Rhodes—were arrested for their roles in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Rhodes, speaking to the Gateway Pundit this week, says that he sees the relaunched group as playing a role in combating what he labeled an “insurrection by the left” on the streets of US cities. “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,” Rhodes said.
But in the days since Rhodes announced their return, experts, former members, and online chatter suggest there is little to no interest in restarting what was, at one point, one of the largest militias in America with a leaked database listing 38,000 supposed members in 2021. This hasn’t stopped Rhodes from asking potential new members and supporters to send money in support of the cause.
But even former Oath Keepers are uninterested. Janet Arroyo, who ran an Oath Keepers chapter in Chino Valley, Arizona, with her husband Jim Arroyo prior to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, says they have not heard from Rhodes in six years and had no plans to rejoin his group.
“He hasn’t reached out during his incarceration, nor since being released,” says Arroyo. “No hard feelings, but we are doing what we do and don’t spend a lot of time wondering what he’s up to. The dumb DC stunt has scared a lot of great patriots into hiding. My guess is he won’t be successful.”
Another former Oath Keeper, Jessica Watkins, an army veteran who was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for her role in the Capitol attack, says she hadn’t even heard about the relaunch when WIRED contacted her this week. “I have not heard of a relaunch, but most J6ers I know are trying to rebuild their lives,” says Watkins, who added that even if she wanted to rejoin, she would be unable to do so as she had her sentence commuted rather than being pardoned. “Felons are not allowed to be in the Oath Keepers or work with them.”
Kelly Meggs, who headed up the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers and was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his part in the attack on the Capitol, says he won’t be joining the relaunched Oath Keepers, as he is concerned about being targeted again when Democrats return to power. “I am more worried about the future,” says Meggs. “I think four and five years from now, eight years from now, 12 years from now, whenever it is, anyone that is a member of these organizations stands at risk of what I went through.”
Meggs said he would be interested in taking part in any work the Oath Keepers were carrying out in response to natural disasters, but he won’t be on the streets defending cities from the perceived threat from antifa. “I am not going to be an active member,” says Meggs. “If they’re doing a big march somewhere, I won’t be there.”
A review of social media platforms and right-wing message boards shows a decided lack of discussion about the new group over the last week, but Meggs says it’s happening in “one-on-one conversations.”
“This just feels like the latest desperate attempt by Rhodes to cling to relevance,” says Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. “There’s no real appetite for the Oath Keepers in 2025. Why would any young anti-government extremist trust a failed insurrectionist who got all of his followers arrested?”
Rhodes did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.
Rhodes founded the Oath Keepers in 2009 as a reaction to a conspiracy theory that the Obama administration was seeking to trigger economic collapse and impose martial law on American citizens. The group largely operated out of the limelight until 2017 when they began to provide security at Trump events, culminating with dozens of members taking part in the attack on the Capitol. Rhodes was convicted in 2023 of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 18 years in jail, with the judge at the time saying Rhodes presented “an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy.”
In January, Rhodes had his sentence commuted to “time served” by Trump, but did not receive a full pardon like hundreds of other insurrectionists, which means his conviction still stands.
Rhodes first floated the idea of restarting the Oath Keepers in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, claiming his group would have been able to prevent the TPUSA founder’s death if it had been operating.
Rhodes then announced his relaunch in an interview nearly two weeks ago with the far-right outlet The New American, which is owned by a subsidiary of the John Birch Society, a right-wing advocacy group. In the interview, Rhodes said he was waiting for Trump to issue him a full pardon before restarting the Oath Keepers, but added that recent events have forced him to act.
And despite the inspiration for the group’s founding, Rhodes now appears to be fully on board with the idea of a US president deploying troops against their own citizens.
“The National Guard is part of the militia, which is why it’s completely lawful for [Trump] to use the National Guard as he has, and he should do more of that, I think, across the country,” Rhodes told the Gateway Pundit.
On November 3, Rhodes launched a new website where people can sign up to become a member of the newly reformed Oath Keepers. Yearly memberships cost $100—though previous lifetime memberships of the original group will be honored, according to the website.
Those seeking to join are asked to send checks or money orders made out to Rhodes’ legal name—Elmer Stewart Rhodes—and send them to an address in Texas, where Rhodes lives. Rhodes has also launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise a “modest goal of $75,000,” the campaign claims, to support the new group. A week after it launched, the campaign has barely broken the $1,000 mark, with just 16 donations. The majority of the money raised came from two $200 donations, one of which came from an individual who identified themself as the Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft.
The website appears to still be a work in progress and features a blank “About” page. Among the “classes” listed on the site is a “Never Surrender” event in Texas scheduled to take place next week. However, according to social media posts, this event appears to be actually being run by the Young Republicans of Houston rather than the Oath Keepers. At the time of publication, the website for purchasing tickets for the event says “online sales are currently paused.”
It is unclear how many people have actually signed up for the new group, and in his interview with The New American, Rhodes said that the number of people currently involved was “classified.”
