INSTITUTE INDEX: How U.S. taxpayers subsidize the Oath Keepers
Alleged members and affiliates of the Oath Keepers seen inside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot in which supporters of former President Trump tried to stop the certification of President Biden's election. Despite the militia group's involvement in seditious violence, the IRS continues to grant some of its chapters nonprofit status, allowing them to avoid paying taxes on the money they raise. (Capitol surveillance footage from a U.S. Department of Justice complaint via Wikimedia Commons.)
Date on which former Oath Keepers spokesperson Jason Van Tatenhove testified before the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, in which Oath Keeper members played a lead role: 7/12/2022
Year in which Stewart Rhodes — a Yale Law School graduate, U.S. Army veteran, and former staffer for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas — founded the far-right anti-government militia group, with a focus on recruiting military veterans and law enforcement officers: 2009
Years, respectively, in which Oath Keepers patrolled a Missouri city amid protests over the police killing of an unarmed Black teen, offered protection for the Kentucky county clerk who defied a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, guarded the site of a deadly far-right rally in Virginia, and monitored voting sites allegedly to discourage fraud: 2014, 2015, 2017, 2020
Date on which Rhodes sent an open letter to then-lame duck President Trump urging him to block the peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden by invoking the Insurrection Act and calling up the military to, as he wrote, "suppress the expected riots, terrorism, and armed insurrection by the radical left": 12/14/2020
Number of Oath Keeper members, including Rhodes, who have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with their roles in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack: 11
Date on which the U.S. Department of Justice filed paperwork in the case against nine of those Oath Keepers charged, alleging that one of them, local Republican activist and retired Navy officer Thomas Caldwell of Virginia, "possessed a 'death list' with the names of Georgia election officials and, later, attempted to have someone build him firearms before January 20, showing Caldwell's intent to oppose government actors by force to stop the transfer of presidential power": 7/8/2022
Year in which the IRS granted charitable tax-exempt status to the Virginia Oath Keepers, a group once led by Caldwell: 2018
Year in which the IRS granted charitable tax-exempt status to Oath Keepers United, another chapter based in Virginia: 2018
Year in which the IRS granted charitable tax-exempt status to the Oath Keepers Educational Foundation, a group headquartered in Louisiana whose filing claimed its primary purpose is to "give veterans an opportunity for continued involvement in community service": 2019
Minimum number of other Oath Keeper groups that the IRS has exempted from taxes, according to a recent report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) titled "Extremist and Hate Groups May Be Abusing Non-Profit Status": 4
Of 73 U.S. militia groups identified by researchers with the Global Disinformation Index and Institute for Strategic Dialogue, including the Oath Keepers, portion that had been granted tax-exempt status, giving them access to numerous fundraising tools: 1/3
Amount tax-exempt groups have to pay in state and federal income taxes, unemployment taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and employment taxes: $0
Month in which ADL contacted the IRS about its research into hate groups with tax-exempt status and asked the agency to investigate: 6/2022
(Click on figure to go to source.)
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Sue Sturgis
Sue is the former editorial director of Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies.