Hundreds of current, former security personnel join US extremist group, says report

WASHINGTON: More than 300 people identifying themselves as current or former employees of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or affiliated agencies appeared on an internal roster of a right-wing extremist group, a media network reported on Monday.

Oath Keepers, the group they are associated with, is an anti-government militia whose leaders have been convicted of violently opposing the US government. According to US media reports, two-thirds of the Oath Keepers are former military or law enforcement personnel, and one-tenth of them are active-duty personnel.

Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the group’s founder, and other leaders are also facing trial for participating in the Jan 2021 attack on the US Congress with the intention to block President Joe Biden from taking oath.

The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) reported that the Oath Keepers included a “20-year special agent” with the US Secret Service who worked in the security detail for two presidents.

The OCCRP is a global network of investigative journalists with staff on six continents.

A person who said he was a “current supervisory border patrol agent”, and one who described himself as an IT employee at the headquarters of the Transportation Security Administration were on the roster as well.

The Oath Keepers roster showed that its 306 dues-paying members listed themselves as affiliated with DHS, including 21 who said they were working for the agency at the time their names were added.

As many as 184 of them identified themselves as having served in the Coast Guard, 67 as having worked in DHS itself, 40 at Customs and Border Protection or the Border Patrol, 11 at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and seven at the US Secret Service.

“The new revelations are troubling,” Bennie Thompson, who chairs the House homeland security committee, told OCCRP. “Extremism within a government is always alarming, but even more so in a department with a law enforcement and national security nexus.”

The DHS was created after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks and has more than 250,000 employees spread out among several agencies under its umbrella.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-racism group, told OCCRP that the Oath Keepers claim to have recruited tens of thousands of current and former US military and law enforcement employees.

The Oath Keepers’ top leader, Rhodes, wrote in a 2009 blog post that “men like this on the inside … can and do provide information to expose what is going on”, adding that “we are hearing from more and more federal officers all the time”.

Documents examined by OCCRP showed that the group received at least $750,000 of annual subscription from its members.