(FreedomBeacon.com)- There are over 300 federal plants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that were involved in the right-wing paramilitary organization “Oath Keepers,” according to Valiant News.
The list was revealed just weeks after the group’s founder Stewart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results. However, Business Insider reports that it was members of the right-wing group that infiltrated the government, not the other way around.
The Oath Keepers began in 2009 and reportedly tried to recruit members from military and law enforcement backgrounds to uphold the U.S. Constitution and refuse to comply with unlawful orders. The decade-long recruitment has led to over 300 members that are “current or former employees of the Department of Homeland Security.”
The members were part of numerous DHS agencies including, US Customs and Immigration Services, the Transportation Security Administration, and the US Secret Service. At least one member claimed to be an active Secret Service agent, and another claimed to be a supervisor for Border Patrol.
Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director of research at SPLC Intelligence Project, said that the Oath Keepers were good at putting on a “constitutionalist” front but that, in reality, they are an extremist group “seeking out law enforcement and military recruits for the perceived credibility it would lend an otherwise fringe organization.” She added that the skills and experience of these recruits would be useful in an armed struggle.
Rivas said that the recruitment from the DHS is not surprising because the group promotes the far-right “replacement theory.”
The FBI has repeatedly refused to answer whether they were involved on January 6 or not, according to American Pigeon. In September 2021, The New York Times published an article where the FBI admitted to having operatives as protestors on January 6.
