Former Oath Keeper Says Militia Planned to Use ‘Any Means Necessary’ on Jan. 6
A recent email exchange between a militia leader and an Oath Keeper volunteer highlights the challenges of planning for mass civil unrest under an Obama presidency.
The following excerpt from that exchange was copied to Inside the Oath Keeper Movement by The Nation’s Jason Rezaian, a researcher with the International Center for Education and Resource Development in Iran.
“So now what in the world is happening in the United States right now?” Scott C. Switzer, an Oath Keeper volunteer and an Ohio resident, wrote to former militia leader Chris W. Taylor on Jan. 6.
Switzer said he had recently learned his name was on a list that the Ohio Civil Guard had just posted on the state’s Web site.
A civil guard volunteer posted on the Ohio Civil Guard Web site told Switzer that his name had been removed from the list after local police became aware of Switzer’s ties to Oath Keeper. Switzer was told to contact the volunteer who posted the information about his removal on the Web site.
“This is exactly what we have been saying in our emails [on the Oath Keeper mailing list],” wrote Switzer to Taylor. “We have been very transparent in saying that this is what we planned for [on Jan. 6].”
He then referred to a story he had been told about the Ohio civil guard posting his name on the list. It turns out Switzer was one of the 10 volunteers from Ohio who had received a private email from a civil guard member asking them to wear orange on Jan. 6.
In that email, a civil guard member informed Switzer that the Civil Guard commander had recently informed him that if any of Ohio’s 10 volunteers wearing orange on Jan. 6 had ever been involved with Oath Keeper, his name had been removed from the list.
Switzer wrote back to Taylor, saying that on Jan. 5, an Oath