Legislature(2021 - 2022)GRUENBERG 120
02/15/2022 01:00 PM House MILITARY & VETERANS' AFFAIRS
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| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Presentation: Oath Keepers Informational Hearing | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
HOUSE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AND VETERANS' AFFAIRS
February 15, 2022
1:00 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Chris Tuck, Chair
Representative Andi Story
Representative Geran Tarr
Representative Matt Claman
MEMBERS ABSENT
Representative George Rauscher
Representative Laddie Shaw
Representative David Nelson
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
PRESENTATION: OATH KEEPERS INFORMATIONAL HEARING
- HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to record
WITNESS REGISTER
SAM JACKSON, PhD, Assistant Professor
College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and
Cybersecurity
University of Albany
Albany, New York
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided a PowerPoint presentation,
entitled "Oath Keepers."
MATTHEW KRINER, Senior Research Scholar
Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism
Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey;
Managing Director
Accelerationism Research Consortium
Monterey, California
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided a PowerPoint presentation entitled
"The Oath Keepers' Warped Patriotism: Political Violence and
Insurrection."
ACTION NARRATIVE
1:00:09 PM
CHAIR CHRIS TUCK called the House Special Committee on Military
and Veterans' Affairs meeting to order at 1:00 p.m.
Representative Tuck was present at the call to order.
Representatives Story, Tarr, and Claman arrived as the meeting
was in progress.
^Presentation: Oath Keepers Informational Hearing
Presentation: Oath Keepers Informational Hearing
1:00:50 PM
CHAIR TUCK announced that the only order of business would be
the Oath Keepers Informational Hearing presentation.
1:02:20 PM
SAM JACKSON, PhD, Assistant Professor, College of Emergency
Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity, University
of Albany, provided a PowerPoint presentation, entitled "Oath
Keepers" [hard copy included in committee packet]. He provided
background about the Oath Keepers, which is an organization,
formed in 2009, and led by Stewart Rhodes, one of the 11 members
charged with seditious conspiracy. Oath Keepers is part of the
patriot militia movement and is organized around a perception
that government is or will soon by tyrannical. Those within the
movement encourage others they consider to be patriots to be
ready to resist the government, perhaps using violence. They
claim to be a non-partisan organization with a benign purpose to
encourage current and former members of law enforcement and the
military to honor their oaths. There is an emphasis on law
enforcement and military individuals, but the organization is
made up of people outside these professions, as well. Events
the group has been involved with leading up to and including the
insurrection are outside the scope of their supposed mission and
involve members being heavily armed and creating volunteer
security in public.
1:09:01 PM
DR. JACKSON responded to Representative Tuck and clarified that
by defining themselves as "non-partisan" they would be
considered a "civic" group, as opposed to an advocacy
organization.
1:09:51 PM
DR. JACKSON said that Oath Keepers promoted the idea of
widespread, systematic voter fraud. They encouraged members
with special forces reconnaissance training to undertake covert
surveillance of polling places to monitor voter fraud. Between
2016 and 2020, they were involved in street clashes where they
depicted themselves as fighting against supposed left-wing
extremist groups, like ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter. Members
of the organization would equip themselves with body armor and
weapons and engage in violence. The Oath Keepers are the most
prominent organization that has faced scrutiny for actions on
January 6, 2021, in Washington D.C. when several members of the
organization invaded the U.S. Capitol and planned aggressive and
criminal activity in the days and weeks leading up to the
insurrection.
DR. JACKSON mentioned that the Oath Keepers have claimed to have
30,000 dues-paying members. Watchdog organizations have
estimated that less than 5,000 members were active at any given
time, although the organization has had a large support base
outside its paid memberships. Prior to being banned by
Facebook, they had hundreds of thousands of likes and followers.
1:13:38 PM
DR. JACKSON responded to a question from Representative Claman
and answered that the national organization is primarily
responsible for driving communications, propaganda, and branding
for the organization. State organizations have autonomy to
decide what activities to engage in. Individuals may be members
of state or national or both. Some states have formed new
chapters, some particularly active state chapters may have
stronger ties with the national organization leadership. Some
state and local chapters have recently disassociated themselves
from the national organization.
1:17:29 PM
DR. JACKSON mentioned that the Oath Keepers have long-promoted
conspiracy theories. Jade Helm 15 was a large-scale military
exercise that occurred in Summer 2015 involving members of
special forces in the military. It was a long-planned and
recurrent exercise that was interpreted by the far right as a
dry run for martial law or as the start of the implementation of
tyranny. They also tapped into conspiracy theories involving
international organizations like the United Nations. They see
environmentalism as a conspiracy of elites. Agenda 21 is a
nonbinding environmental agreement organized by the United
Nations and is viewed by the Oath Keepers as a way of
depopulating the West to force Americans to move into urban
areas where they will be easier to control. The Oath Keepers
believe in an ongoing conspiracy that the Federal Government
would travel door-to-door to confiscate legally owned firearms.
1:20:40 PM
DR. JACKSON said that the Oath Keepers were nominally in favor
of the Black Lives Matter movement at its start in 2014 in terms
of protesting police brutality and militarization of the police.
Oath Keepers have since proven themselves to be unsupportive of
Black Lives Matter and by 2016 claimed that the movement was an
international conspiracy, a global communist insurgency, and an
international terrorist organization.
DR. JACKSON said that Stewart Rhodes has long argued that
martial law would be how government would infringe upon the
rights of those who dissented from government. By 2020, he
specifically called on the government to use martial law to
violate the rights of Americans who dissented from government.
This pivot in the perspective on martial law highlights the
increasing engagement with radicalism, conspiracy theories, and
violence that the Oath Keepers have increasingly adopted over
time.
1:22:59 PM
DR. JACKSON defined popular constitutionalism and popular
nullification, which are concepts developed by historians to
describe how Americans react, interpret, or act in
correspondence with what they've seen. Popular
constitutionalism is the idea that people think they are above
and beyond the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of laws.
Popular nullification is the idea that individuals are legally
and politically empowered to decline to comply with any law that
they view as unconstitutional regardless of legal decisions
indicating otherwise. An example of nullification in action is
the support for noncompliance with COVID-19 pandemic mitigation
policies. "County Supremacy" is the idea that the county
sheriff is the highest law enforcement authority in a county
with the legal right and obligation to prevent federal law
enforcement action that the sheriff sees as unconstitutional
regardless of a court order.
1:30:40 PM
DR. JACKSON gave an example of county supremacy in Riverside
County, California, where the Sheriff Chad Bianco, a former
member of the Oath Keepers, declared he would not enforce
vaccine mandates for his staff. The Sheriff said, "The
government has no ability and no authority to mandate your
health choices." He also described himself as "the last line of
defense from tyrannical government overreach." These are
examples of rhetoric used by the sheriff to position himself as
the defender of rights, while simultaneously engaging in actions
that make violence more likely. Oath Keepers regularly attempt
to use rhetoric to justify the possible use of violence by
couching it in defensive language.
1:36:08 PM
DR. JACKSON said that Oath Keepers have a worldview driven by
conflict between good and evil. They believe that any
disagreement is the result of nefarious action by evil-
intentioned elites. Rather than recognizing that some bad
outcomes are the result of a complex convergence of a wide range
of factors, they see all bad outcomes as the result of a
nefarious plan by evil elites.
1:37:51 PM
DR. JACKSON said it is problematic to have Oath Keepers in
public roles. He gave the example of sheriffs deciding for
themselves which laws to enforce based on whatever they think
the constitution says or means. It is problematic if policy
makers adopt a worldview that is driven by conspiracy and
conceptions of unavoidable violent conflicts behind everyone who
doesn't agree with them.
1:41:13 PM
DR. JACKSON, in response to Representative Tarr, said it is fair
to say that a robust understanding of popular constitutionalism
empowers individuals to interpret the constitution with more
authority than the Supreme Court. This has strong implications
that undercut due process and the Rule of Law. If individuals
decide for themselves what the constitution means, other than
through interpretation by law experts within the courts, they
will operate under different understandings of the law, and that
is extremely problematic.
1:43:15 PM
DR. JACKSON, in response to Representative Story, said that Oath
Keepers promote firearms as a means for Americans to protect
their rights.
1:46:16 PM
MATTHEW KRINER, Senior Research Scholar, Center on Terrorism,
Extremism, and Counterterrorism, Middlebury Institute of
International Studies at Monterey; Managing Director,
Accelerationism Research Consortium, said that he would speak
about the Oath Keepers warped patriotism and how that has
contributed to political violence and ultimately their role in
the January 6, 2021, insurrection. He described the Oath
Keepers as an anti-government, anti-authority, right-wing
extremist organization. They style themselves as the "Guardians
of the Republic" and are fixated on alleged tyranny and social
collapse. They are driven by conspiracy theories like the idea
that there is a "deep state" or a secret hidden force that seeks
to exploit the American people, and that Donald Trump was a key
figure in pushing back against the "deep state." He said that
the Oath Keepers are not explicitly racist, fascist, or neo-
Nazi, however there are individuals within the Oath Keepers who
have racist tendencies.
1:52:13 PM
MR. KRINER said that Oath Keepers engage in political activism
and spread misinformation specifically on Alex Jones' show "Info
Wars." They also engage in paramilitary activities.
1:55:08 PM
MR. KRINER detailed the phases the Oath Keepers have gone
through over the years. The stand-off phase involved responding
to sociopolitical dynamics in communities and in ideological
ways that weren't consistent with their founding phase. They
were concerned with federal government overreach and had fears
of tyranny. During the 2016 election phase, the Oath Keepers
latched onto the "Make America Great Again" movement. They
became a regular fixture at President Trump's rallies. Their
fears over leftist behaviors and conspiratorial outlooks were
amplified.
1:58:20 PM
MR. KRINER read a quote by Stewart Rhodes which said, "It's the
right of the people to abolish it to institute such new
government as they think is necessary or reform it. It's the
people's obligation." The actions of the Oath Keepers
demonstrate that they believe they have the right to violently
take back what they believe is the proper governance.
2:00:02 PM
MR. KRINER mentioned that while the Oath Keepers are not a
racist group, they do overlap with extremist entities like the
"Three Percenters," the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace
Officers Association (CSPOA), and March Against Sharia. He said
Charles Dyer is a concerning individual who was an Oath Keeper
who said "Join the military? Depends on what you want to do
with it. Me? I'm going to use my training and become one of
those domestic terrorists that you're so afraid of from the DHS
reports." He wears a skull mask which is a symbol for societal
collapse narratives across the far-right.
2:05:23 PM
MR. KRINER mentioned the perception bolstered by Stewart Rhodes
and others that America is currently involved in a civil war, or
about to be in a civil war, and that action is necessary to
prevent it. This is similar to the beliefs of neo-fascist
accelerationists who believe that these circumstances present
opportunities to hasten the cultural collapse of society to
institute a new system of government. On November 5, 2020, Mr.
Rhodes said, "We aren't getting through this without a civil
war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit."
This perception grew considerably during the ramp up to January
6, 2021.
2:07:14 PM
MR. KRINER said Stewart Rhodes and other Oath Keepers generated
civil war fear mongering through implicit threats toward
different levels of government over time.
2:10:54 PM
MR. KRINER talked about former Oregon State Representative Mike
Nearman who was expelled for orchestrating armed demonstrators'
access to the locked-down Oregon Capital during the anti-
lockdown protest. This led to clashes between demonstrators and
law enforcement wherein officers were assaulted physically and
with mace. This event was dubbed "Operation Hall Pass" and,
upon investigation, involved advanced planning of the event.
Mr. Kriner talked about Washington State former Representative
Matt Shea who was expelled for acts of domestic terrorism and
anti-government militia activity. He attended and supported the
Bundy Ranch stand off with the "Three Percenters," attended and
supported the Malheur Refuge occupation, and was associated with
the Oregon Oath Keepers chapter.
2:13:42 PM
MR. KRINER discussed the insurrection. There have been 737
arrests to date: 92 individuals were affiliated with domestic
violence extremist groups like the Proud Boys and the Three
Percenters; 26 Oath Keepers are included in the arrests; Mr.
Rhodes and 10 Oath Keepers were charged with seditious
conspiracy.
2:15:04 PM
MR. KRINER concluded by reading slide 15, which said that "if
there was any doubt before, the reality of Rhodes and the Oath
Keepers has been exposed. They are not the 'guardians of the
republic' that they purport to be in their recruitment drives
and on their website. Instead, they have weaponized patriotism
in an effort to subvert American democracy." They are willing
to engage in violence to carry out their personal beliefs.
2:16:20 PM
MR. KRINER, in response to Representative Tarr, said that
currently the 2022 evaluations are not exclusive to the Oath
Keepers. Federal activity has limited official action of the
Oath Keeper organizations and state chapters. The legacy of the
Oath Keepers will likely live beyond Stewart Rhodes' prison
sentence. In response to Chair Tuck, who asked about how the
organization is run, he noted that the status is vague due to
ongoing legal challenges. He deferred to Dr. Jackson.
2:19:25 PM
DR. JACKSON said there has long been a board of directors for
the Oath Keepers organization. Upon launch, Stewart Rhodes
registered the Oath Keepers in Nevada. The board of directors
was hand chosen by Mr. Rhodes. There doesn't seem to be a
process to establish a new leader. Mr. Rhodes' status as
president-for-life was written into the bylaws. The only way he
can be removed is through resignation or removal due to
incompetence as deemed by the board of directors.
2:22:19 PM
DR. JACKSON said there has not been a case filed in reference to
the group, but rather cases for the individual Oath Keepers
involved directly with activities on January 6, 2021.
Currently, investigation details are not publicly available.
2:24:05 PM
MR. KRINER, in response to Representative Story, said that
actions by the organization, individual chapters, or individuals
can lead to a loss or gain of membership. Individuals who
assign sympathy to the Oath Keepers say with their actions that
they are comfortable with the actions taken on January 6, 2021.
DR. JACKSON added that journalists have shown that some have
renounced the Oath Keepers, while others have joined or renewed
membership explicitly after January 6, 2021. Some have engaged
in conspiracy theories to reject the role of Oath Keepers in the
insurrection despite the overwhelming evidence.
2:26:30 PM
REPRESENTATIVE TARR mentioned that another Alaska State
Representative was present at the January 6 insurrection.
MR. KRINER said that January 6 is not a barometer of
undemocratic actions and not necessarily the best way to judge
whether individuals are a threat to democracy and the
legislature. He clarified that the expelled state
representatives mentioned earlier were removed from office prior
to January 6, 2021.
2:31:54 PM
MR. KRINER, in response to Representative Tarr, surmised that
Stewart Rhodes ego was important in the formation of the Oath
Keepers.
2:35:20 PM
MR. KRINER, in response to Representative Claman, discussed what
constitutes a membership of the Oath Keepers.
2:37:58 PM
DR. JACKSON mentioned that there have been some cases of Oath
Keepers who have severed ties. Scholars of extremism and
terrorism make the distinction between disengagement and
deradicalization. Disengagement refers to a behavioral change
where a person stops participating in extremist or terrorist
activities or chooses not to maintain membership with an
extremist organization. Deradicalization is where a person
rejects the ideas that underlie the initial involvement.
2:41:41 PM
DR. JACKSON, in response to Representative Tuck, said that Oath
Keepers had wallet cards to affirm membership to the
organization. There is sometimes an informal oath ceremony
where members who are not part of law enforcement, military, or
first responder organizations can recite a military oath.
2:43:10 PM
ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business before the committee, the House
Special Committee on Military and Veterans' Affairs meeting was
adjourned at 2:43 p.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| 20220215 Jackson slides pdf.pdf |
HMLV 2/15/2022 1:00:00 PM |
|
| 20220215 Kriner slides_Oath Keepers_Alaska pdf.pdf |
HMLV 2/15/2022 1:00:00 PM |
|
| Combating Terrorism Center at West Point Sentinel December 2021.pdf |
HMLV 2/15/2022 1:00:00 PM |
|
| 20220215 Oath Keepers leader indictment just the tip of a scary iceberg_Jackson_Kriner_Lewis.pdf |
HMLV 2/15/2022 1:00:00 PM |