On Jan. 6, 2021, as a mob of loyalDonald Trumpsupporters ascended the steps of the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stopJoe Bidenfrom becoming president, members of far-right extremists groups with violent tendencies could be seen in attendance.
On Tuesday, the House committee investigating theCapitol riotsexploredhow Trump riled extremists and fervent followersto engage in illegal activity at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
To demonstrate the intentions of people who traveled to D.C. on his behalf, the committee brought inJason Van Tatenhove, former national media director for the Oath Keepers, to explain under oath the mentality behind the group.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP; Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
“I spent a few years with the Oath Keepers, and I can tell you that they may not like to call themselves a militia, but they are. They are a violent militia,” said Van Tatenhove, who considers himself a former employee — not a former member — of the group.
He continued: “I think the best illustration for what the Oath Keepers are happened Jan. 6, when we saw that stacked military formation going up the stairs of the Capitol.”
Van Tatenhove told the committee how he got involved with the vigilante militia — and why he left the organization not long after.
As an independent journalist, Van Tatenhove covered Oath Keepers' standoffs with the government. After appearing at three separate standoffs, he said the group approached him with a job offer to serve as national media director and associate editor for the website.
The more Van Tatenhove got to know members of the group, though, the more uncomfortable he felt. He described to lawmakers a sense of white nationalism running rampant through the organization, and alleged some members were “straight-up racists.”
“The straw that broke the camel’s back” and made him realize he needed to cut ties with the group, he testified, was when he heard a group of Oath Keepers talking openly in a grocery store “about how the Holocaust was not real.”
Though he was not wealthy — “barely surviving,” in his own words — he said it didn’t matter. He went home to his wife and kids and told them he needed out and would figure out a plan to make money after quitting.
Acting as a spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, Van Tatenhove worked closely with the group’s founder,Stewart Rhodes, who was charged this year with seditious conspiracy for allegedly planning to use force to oppose a governmental process. (A filmmakercaptured footageof Rhodes meeting with the leader of another far-right hate group, theProud Boys, in a parking garage the night before the riots.) Van Tatenhove called Rhodes a “militia leader.”
“He had these grand visions of being a paramilitary leader. And the insurrection act would have given him a path forward with that,” the former spokesperson said. Eagerly awaiting a chance to act with violence, Van Tatenhove testified based on his observations, Rhodes likely saw Trump’s tweets encouraging supporters to step in and help as a “nod” that it was time to escalate.
Capitol rioter Stephen Ayres and former Oath Keepers employee Jason Van Tatenhove are sworn in to testify.Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo
Testifying alongside Van Tatenhove wasStephen Ayres, a man who did storm the Capitol and recently pleaded guilty to a federal charge of disorderly conduct. Ayres was not associated with any extremist groups, but heeded Trump’s call to travel to Washington and “stop the steal.”
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Ayres' reasoning for participating in the riot, he testified, was that Trump had convinced him the election was stolen and asked him to defend the integrity of the country: “We basically were just following what he said.”
Van Tatenhove said that he fears the 2024 election cycle with the division in America today, worried about what it will bring after seeing how people — and groups like the Oath Keepers — reacted to the 2020 election.
“I think we’ve gotten exceedingly lucky that more bloodshed did not happen because the potential has been there from the start,” Van Tatenhove said. “This could have been the spark that started a new civil war, and no one would have won there.”
source: people.com
