January 6th: Hearing Preview and the Oath Keepers Trial

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Remember how the January 6th committee in Congress postponed its latest presentation last month because of Hurricane Ian? Well, it's now been rescheduled for tomorrow. Maybe you've heard, Thursday. It's at one o'clock. We'll have live coverage here on the station. Committee member Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren told CNN yesterday that she expects the hearing to reveal pretty surprising new material about Donald Trump's plan for that day, as well as what the President knew and when he knew it, about plans to physically invade the Capitol as they were certifying the election.

Lofgren said on CNN, "The mob was led by some extremist groups. They plotted in advance what they were going to do, and those individuals were known to people in the Trump orbit." What will we learn about some of those ties like how deep into Trump's inner circle? Anyone may have known about the invasion of the Capitol being premeditated. Let's preview what we might learn tomorrow, also talk about the Oath Keepers. Their trial is going on right now. The leader of the Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, and some of his other top people and there may be connections there.

We will also, later in this segment, hear from WNYC's Matt Katz, who's been covering a number of New York and New Jersey police officers who were found on a list last year of Oath Keepers members and still have their jobs. Matt is coming up with that. First, we welcome Quinta Jurecic, fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, senior editor at Lawfare, and a contributing writer for The Atlantic. Quinta, always good to have you. We always learn from you. Thank you for coming on today.

Quinta Jurecic: Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: What would you say is already known as a matter of background about some of those ties I was referring to in the intro that Zoe Lofgren says we'll learn more about tomorrow, like how deep into Trump's inner circle anyone may have known about the invasion of the Capitol being premeditated?

Quinta Jurecic: The committee has shown a fair amount of evidence over the course of its summer hearings, indicating that there really was a knowledge that something was going to happen on January 6th, that Trump was warned repeatedly that what he was doing in terms of ginning up belief in election fraud could cause violence and including some evidence that he had planned on that day, January 6th, to encourage folks to march to the Capitol.

I believe there was an email indicating that he was planning to say it as if it were spontaneous, but that suggestion of marching to the Capitol really was something that was already in the plans. We also know from the committee's work that Trump himself tried to go down to the Capitol after rioters were already arriving following his speech on January 6th. The Washington Post reported this morning that the committee has obtained email evidence from the Secret Service further corroborating that.

Now, on the question of the specific actions that went on to take place at the Capitol, the violence, the attempted insurrection. I don't know how much we know about the specific details and to what extent they were shared within Trump's inner circle and with Trump himself, so I will definitely be watching closely to see what the committee has to share there.

Brian Lehrer: Whatever the new revelations are about Trump World's ties to extremist groups, they come just as the leader and several members of one of those groups as I mentioned, the Oath Keepers, are standing trial for seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol attack. I want to play a clip of Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, seeming to refer well in advance to a plan for something on that day.

This is an audio recording via CNN released by the Department of Justice this month. This recording is from November of 2020 after the election, showing members of the Oath Keepers making preparations for violence ahead of January 6th. The sound quality's a little grainy here. Listeners, I think it's worth it. It's about 40 seconds of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes.

Stewart Rhodes: If the fight comes, let the fight come. Let Antifa go. If they go kinetic on us, then we'll go kinetic back on them. I'm going to sacrifice myself with that. If they go kinetic, good. If they blow bombs up and shoot us, great, because that brings the President his reason and rationale for dropping the Insurrection Act. If you're going to have a fight, guys, you want to start now while he's still commander-in-chief. You do not want to waste this opportunity and let him feel like he has no support-- to go into the DC, but I do want some Oath Keepers to stay on the outside and to stay fully armed and prepared to go in armed if they have to. If the shit kicks off, then you rock and roll.

Brian Lehrer: Now, I'm assuming listeners were able to hear that pretty well. I'll read some of the text of that to refresh. Quinta, that sort of cuts both ways because Stewart Rhodes, at least that early in November of 2020, seems to be saying that, "We're not going to go into the DC, but I do want some Oath Keepers to stay on the outside and stay fully armed and prepared to go in armed if you have to. Let Antifa go. If they go kinetic on us, then we'll go kinetic back on them," right? Antifa presumably referring to potentially violent leftist groups. How do you hear that Stewart Rhodes clip? If you've been following the trial, how do you hear what's being revealed there in connection with what we might hear from the committee tomorrow about coordination with Trump?

Quinta Jurecic: I agree certainly that it could be read both ways. I'll confess. I haven't been following the trial perhaps as closely as I might like to. I'd definitely point listeners to the work of my colleague at Lawfare, Roger Parloff, who's been in the courtroom every day and has been live-tweeting the trial. I think that really gets to, as you say, one of the main questions about the role of the Oath Keepers here, not only to what extent were they attempting to initiate violence versus sort of standing by to take advantage if violence began.

One of the defenses that Rhodes is making in this trial is essentially saying that he believed that he was standing by waiting for Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and sort of call up the Oath Keepers as a peacekeeping force. I should emphasize that I don't know any legal scholar who believes that that's how the Insurrection Act actually works, [chuckles] but that is a defense that Rhodes is making.

Then there is also this question of, "To what extent was there actually any coordination between the Oath Keepers and the White House?" This, I think, is really one of the big, open questions. The committee hasn't really answered that question and they're hearing about the Oath Keepers. They didn't quite get there to this issue of, "Was there any direct communication?" We've seen in the indictment of Rhodes and other Oath Keepers for seditious conspiracy.

There's material in there that describes how, I believe, Rhodes or another Oath Keeper essentially said, "It looks like Trump's not going to invoke the Insurrection Act. Let's go in on our own." I'm paraphrasing there, but essentially indicating that they were frustrated that Trump hadn't taken the actions that they wanted while they were in the Capitol, which you could read us saying there's an absence of coordination there.

They were waiting for something and they didn't get it. I think it's really tough to draw that direct line based on the evidence that we have so far. Now, that being said, we certainly do know that we have a situation where Trump created an environment where there was an enormous amount of potential violence. He created an environment where the Oath Keepers felt able to show up to the Capitol. I definitely don't want to let him off the hook for that.

Brian Lehrer: Right, interesting. Listeners, we can take a few phone calls for Quinta Jurecic from Brookings and Lawfare if you have any about the specific pieces that we're anticipating hearing more about tomorrow or if you've been following the Oath Keepers trial, 212-433-WNYC, on these potential connections as Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren from the January 6th committee describes them as, "The mob was led by some extremist groups. They plotted in advance what they were going to do. Those individuals were known to people in the Trump orbit."

Anything you've been gleaning from pieces of evidence with respect to that question as you've been following the story or anything you want to ask, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. I guess even Zoe Lofgren's language is careful there, Quinta, right? She says, "The mob was led by some extremist groups." That's straightforward. "They plotted in advance what they were going to do." That's straightforward. Then she says, "Those individuals were known to people in the Trump orbit." While she's saying the individuals were known, she's not quite saying that the plans were known to people in the Trump orbit.

Quinta Jurecic: That's right. We do have evidence, depending on how broadly you define the Trump orbit, that there were connections. I think the biggest example is Roger Stone, for example, who's obviously a well-known associate of Trump, someone who received a pardon from Trump, someone who we know that the committee has been investigating in terms of his role in the violence around January 6th.

He was shown on January 6th with a battalion of Oath Keepers around him, supposedly providing physical protection. You might say that that is an example of Oath Keepers known to someone in the Trump orbit, but it doesn't answer that burning question of, "To what extent did Trump or folks in the White House know what the Oath Keepers were planning?"

Brian Lehrer: NBC News reported before the original hearing date last month that the committee would show footage of Trump confidant Roger Stone. How much do you know about how much Stone was involved, either with Trump at that moment or with the extremist groups in any plans they might have had for that day? Because I know there's this new documentary about Stone, maybe that's some of the footage that the committee will show tomorrow, that suggests he was fairly heavily involved with some of these groups.

Quinta Jurecic: That's right. I believe, as you say, that the footage regarding Stone is from a Danish filmmaker, who was following him to put together a documentary. Query-wise, Stone thought it was a good idea to have a documentarian follow him around and film him while he was discussing plans for violence after the election, but it does seem that Stone had, as I said, connections with the Oath Keepers, connections with the Proud Boys extremist group, members of whom had been indicted on also charges of seditious conspiracy as with the Oath Keepers.

The New York Times and The Washington Post as well have reported on what might be shown in this footage that really indicates Stone talking ahead of the 6th about plans to claim a victory before the election, before the votes were even counted, plans to potentially engineer violence, comparing the 6th to the famous Brooks Brothers riot in the 2000 election, and potentially asking Trump for a pardon after the 6th. It certainly seems like Stone was very much involved in this process to some extent.

Again, though, there's that question of, "To what extent was he having these conversations with Trump?" Stone is someone who he likes to put himself out there. He likes to present himself as someone who has a lot of connections and is very involved in all kinds of plotting, but it's often unclear with him to what extent he is exaggerating and playing up his own role. That, I think, again, it's just really, really hard to know. This is that same problem turned up in the Muller report in terms of Stone's involvement potentially with WikiLeaks and Russian hackers. I think we still have that same question now.

Brian Lehrer: What you call the Brooks Brothers riot there is a pretty interesting piece of history. Some of our listeners may know what that refers to, some may not. As you said, it was in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election. People look back so warmly now on the presidency of George W. Bush as being normal times. [chuckles] Of course, there was that major battle, which was mostly a political battle, not a physical battle like January 6th, between the Bush camps and the Gore camps over the vote in Florida.

That was going to determine who won the election. It was finally determined by the Supreme Court, which shut down the recount that was going on in Florida, but the Brooks Brothers riot was a piece of that. Do you want to describe it, just look back on that and how it connects to this, and what people planning January 6th may have felt that they learned from that moment in Bush versus Gore?

Quinta Jurecic: Sure, absolutely. The so-called Brooks Brothers riot was a demonstration in Miami-Dade County, Florida during the Florida recount in the 2000 election. That was essentially engineered by Republican operatives, folks supporting Bush, with the goal of stopping the recount. They flooded the building where the recount was being conducted, knocked on the doors wanting to look into the recount as it was happening. Roger Stone later said that he was intimately involved in planning this.

I believe it's actually a bit unclear to what extent he was involved, but he is certainly drawing a line there. I think there's a quote in this documentary where he says what he's proposing in terms of taking the election for Trump is, and I quote, "basically what Bush did to Gore." I think that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but it certainly does point to a political through-line in how Stone, at least, is seeing the use of the political process, the use of political dirty tricks to secure election for his candidate.

Now, I should emphasize, the situation in 2000 was extremely different than the situation in 2020. I think that there's no question, whatever you make of the Brooks Brothers riot disrupting a recount in one county in Florida is quite different than attempting to violently block the certification of the electoral vote after all of the votes had been counted, but it is extremely interesting to see Stone himself drawing that through-line from 2000 to today.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Elliot in Manhattanville on an aspect of the Oath Keepers trial. Elliot, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Elliot: Hi, good morning, Brian. Question for your guest about the seditious conspiracy charge, which I gather is a very difficult charge to prove in court. I'm just wondering about, is that something that you think we're going to see used again in the course of this investigation? In other words, are there other people out there that you think investigators are targeting for that charge, or is this group pretty much the ones that are getting hit with that charge?

Brian Lehrer: Great question, Elliot. Quinta, what do you know?

Elliot: Thank you.

Quinta Jurecic: The caller is absolutely right. This is not a charge that is used very recently. I believe the last successful prosecution was some 30 years ago. It actually is the case that one other group has been charged with this, and that's the Proud Boys. They have also been charged with seditious conspiracy in conjunction with their role in helping engineer the January 6th riot.

Now, it's important to emphasize as with the Oath Keepers, there's not that kind of final link to Trump himself that these indictments are really painting a portrait of groups that among themselves are engaging in seditious conspiracy under the terms of the statute. There's not that kind of link to outside, but I do think that it is quite notable that the government felt confident enough to make these cases that they didn't need to pull out the statute.

There have been plenty of folks, over 800 prosecutions of January 6th rioters for charges that are much less politically, potentially incendiary, difficult to prove than seditious conspiracy. I do think that it's kind of a show of confidence on the government's part that they're comfortable pulling out this statute, dusting it off a little bit, and making that case that these really were people who were, in the words of the statute, conspiring to overthrow, put down, or destroy by force, the government of the United States.

Brian Lehrer: Whoa, it's so rare, right? It's rarely been charged in the history of the United States, seditious conspiracy, with the existential implications that it has, trying to overthrow the government of the United States.

Quinta Jurecic: That's right. It really has very, very rarely been used. I think that that emphasizes just how serious this is. I think you might look at this and say it's a bad idea for the government to dust this off because now that this tool is out of the box, perhaps it could be used for situations that are far less dire. I think looking at it another way, you can also say this just shows how serious January 6th is.

This is a statute that has, for extremely good reasons, not been used very often. This is not a charge that you want to wave around every time someone gets arrested at a protest or something like that. It really is a marker, I think, that the Justice Department sees what happened on January 6th as so far beyond the pale of normal political upheaval in the United States that it really justifies the use of this statute.

Brian Lehrer: Another question for tomorrow's January 6th committee hearing is whether we'll hear anything about the testimony the committee got recently from Ginni Thomas, a "big lie" activist and proponent to this day apparently and, of course, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Have you seen anything about what they may have learned from Ginni Thomas in their recent interview with her?

Quinta Jurecic: Right, so it's taken them quite a while to get ahold of Ginni Thomas. The conversations around whether she'd sit for an interview were ongoing for months, I believe. She did, as you say, finally come in and talk to them. Interestingly though, they did not videotape that testimony. The committee has mostly been taping all of the depositions that they've conducted. If listeners have been watching the hearings, they've seen video clips. That didn't happen in the Thomas case.

I don't know to what extent we'll see any evidence from what she told them in the hearing, given that they'll be working just from a transcript. I don't believe that we've learned very much about what she said during that conversation. If I'm remembering correctly the main takeaway, and I believe Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson or other members of the committee said after the fact that she indicated that she still does believe that the election was stolen from Trump in 2020, but that's really all we know so far.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe that's why they didn't want to videotape her, feel obligated to use somebody spreading the lie.

Quinta Jurecic: That could be the case, although they've shown other folks spreading lies in the hearing so far. For example, clips of Trump saying such things. I would wonder whether part of the decision not to tape it, perhaps, I don't know, was a consideration of bringing her in in the first place. We know that this was a long, difficult, drawn-out discussion. There were a lot of times where it seemed like she was going to come in and then backed off. There was a question about whether they would subpoena her. Perhaps they decided that it was important enough to get her testimony that they were going to forgo the videotaping in order to just be able to get her in there in the room and ask her some questions.

Brian Lehrer: Meaning she, for some reason, would not want to be videotaped?

Quinta Jurecic: Potentially. Again, I should say, I don't know if that's the case. You can imagine if you're someone who's coming in to testify before the committee, you can say, "Well, I'm more comfortable having this conversation behind closed doors with just a transcript. It's a little less public." You might have a little more of that security that you're not going to show up on the big screen in the committee while they're holding that hearing. You can keep yourself a little bit more at a distance. I should emphasize, it's really quite stunning that the committee has been able to videotape so many, almost all of these conversations. That is really rare. I think it emphasizes just how committed they are to presenting their evidence in an accessible, interesting way to viewers.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, they got Ivanka Trump and all kinds of people, William Barr to sit for videotaped interviews. Obviously, they've been used to great effect. There will be no live witnesses tomorrow from what I've seen. Just presentations by the committee members and including video. That makes it seem perhaps their closing arguments to the American people tomorrow. I've also seen different accounts of whether tomorrow will be the final hearing or not and even possibly some disagreement among committee members as to whether it should be. Do you know anything about that?

Quinta Jurecic: You're absolutely right that it's been a little unclear. The recent reporting that I've seen has really hedged a little bit, saying this will probably be the final hearing. I think that does indicate that they're keeping their options open. Perhaps more evidence might come up or perhaps this is going to be their last hurrah. For that reason, I wouldn't be surprised if they fashioned this hearing as a final presentation of the evidence in live format, but then kept that door open to show up for another hearing if something big happens. We've seen them call sudden hearings before when new information came up such as the testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

I also think it's important to remember that the hearings are not the only format in which we're going to see the evidence that the committee has collected. They also need to put together this final report, which I imagine they've been working on. We should expect to see that publicly released in the next few months. I would imagine that there may well be material there that they haven't had a chance to put forward in these public hearings. Even if tomorrow is the last hearing that the committee convenes, they're certainly not done with their work yet. I wouldn't be surprised if they had more to say.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and so last question for now. Again, listeners, we'll have live coverage of the January 6th committee hearing on the station at one o'clock tomorrow afternoon. If the Republicans win control of the House of Representatives on election day, they will take power in January and surely cancel the January 6th committee. Does that prospect suggest what they might be doing between now and election day or after election day, depending on which party wins control? Because they will have to issue a report at some point.

Maybe it will come before the end of the year in any case, but it could be more for criminal charges or less. It could be for the sake of history just so everybody who's concerned about the long-term survival of democracy in this country knows as much as possible about what happened, or for letting the American public know more of what Donald Trump in particular was willing to do to break our democracy as a point of information if he runs for president again next year. I'm curious how you see this range of options and timelines.

Quinta Jurecic: I imagine that they have been assuming that they're not going to be around come January that they've been putting together their report with the sense that there really is that ticking clock. In terms of what the report might look like, we have some sense of that because of the resolution that the House passed putting the committee together in the first place.

We know that this report has to contain an overview of what facts that they found and in the words of the authorizing resolution, findings, conclusions, and recommendations for corrective measures. Essentially meaning, what solutions do they have for these problems that they have identified? We know that the committee has talked about potential legislative changes, changes to the criminal law. I imagine that that would be in there. They might have proposed solutions for the functioning of law enforcement and intelligence agencies related to the issues that we saw in terms of law enforcement response to January 6th.

I would certainly expect to see some of that as well. I don't know, but I would imagine that a kind of report like this is a really good format for setting forth a definitive record of what happened on the 6th, what Trump knew, and when he knew it in the same way that the Mueller report set out a record. I do think that whatever report they produce, I would imagine, is going to be operating on those multiple levels, speaking to the public now, creating a record for the future, and putting out recommendations to prevent something like this from happening again.

Brian Lehrer: Well, there, we will leave it for now with Quinta Jurecic, fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, senior editor at Lawfare, and contributing writer at The Atlantic. Quinta, thank you so much. I know we asked you to jump on at the last minute this morning to do this January 6th committee hearing preview for us. Great job and we always appreciate your time and your insights.

Quinta Jurecic: Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute, folks, with a local take, WNYC and Gothamist Matt Katz, with his reporting on New York and New Jersey police officers found on an Oath Keepers list last year and who still have their jobs. Matt will name names and the implications of that list. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. WNYC and Gothamist Matt Katz is here now. His latest article is about New York and New Jersey police officers found on an Oath Keepers list last year and who still have their jobs. Hi, Matt.

Matt Katz: Hey there, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Tell us about this list.

Matt Katz: About a year ago, there was this list that leaked. It was a list of people who had signed up and paid to be members of the Oath Keepers at some point several years ago. This list leaks. It's put out by a nonprofit journalism group called Distributed Denial of Secrets. That's the name of this group. For myself and three colleagues, for about a week or two--

Brian Lehrer: Can I just laugh with you for a minute and for the audience at that name, Distributed Denial of Secrets? Because when people hack computers or hack our electrical grid or hack a company's computer system, that's known as distributed denial of service, right? That's what the evil hackers do. They launch DDoS attacks, distributed denial of service. This is a news organization, an investigative news organization, and they've taken that and adapted it to Distributed Denial of Secrets. It's an inside joke, but I get it. I just thought I would share it with everybody.

Matt Katz: Very good. Thank you for illuminating us on that. It's a whole new world. Even the idea that news organizations would take hacked information and analyze it and take it seriously, it represents a whole new journalistic front. Across the country, local reporters dug into these lists to see what the names were, and we were among the first to do it. This is last year. We essentially just went through every name and looked at public databases to see who might be in law enforcement and in other public offices.

Obviously, this is Oath Keepers or an anti-government group. If there are actual police officers who are members, then we want to know. We did identify in New Jersey and New York, dozens of people who, it appeared to be, were members of law enforcement or military agencies or first responders in some way. At the time when we identified these names and called some of these public agencies to see what they thought of it, the authorities said, "Yes, we're going to investigate. This is a big deal. We don't want Oath Keepers in our midst."

A year went by and I decided to give some of these agencies a call to find out how the investigations went. We focused on four people who were the most prominent that we had identified. All four are still in their jobs following investigations. There are different reasons, but it's interesting and revealing, and also goes to the limitations of trying to root out potential, maybe extremists in public agency's myths. I can read real quick these people.

Brian Lehrer: I'll just say for even a little more context, maybe you touched on this. The Oath Keepers has almost as its signature membership identity. They have a lot of military or former military and former law enforcement and, I guess as we've learned from you, present law enforcement people in their ranks.

Matt Katz: Exactly right. That's who they recruit from. The idea of the Oath Keepers is that these are people who took the oath and to their jobs, but really, the oath is to the flag and the United States. They yield to that rather than the local or federal governments. The first name was an NYPD officer assigned to the Strategic Response Group, which you remember, Brian, they're the NYPD officers who quell protests like after the murder of George Floyd and something of a controversial entity.

Aniello Napoli is the name of the officer. The NYPD said that after an internal investigation, it was determined that there was no misconduct. I don't know of any more information than that. I don't know if he joined the group and no longer espouses those views or what came of it, but I do know that there isn't a specific rule that says you can't be a member of the Oath Keepers and you might get into some First Amendment issues. That's a challenge for these agencies. The other NYPD--

Brian Lehrer: Well, before we go to the other one, let's linger on that because I think a lot of listeners may have that question in their mind. What would the standard be for firing an NYPD officer or an officer on any Jersey police force with respect to affiliation with the Oath Keepers? If they believe in what the Oath Keepers stand for as violent and seditious as that might be, but they have no history of acting on it, is that where the line is? Is even a membership in this group-- You mentioned First Amendment issues for firing people for a mere membership, free speech issues, free association issues. Is there an NYPD policy that makes it clear what groups you can belong to, the Ku Klux Klan, if you don't actually take any violent action or other serious action in support of their cause?

Matt Katz: This is a major issue because, across the country, public entities have just a variety of policies and labor agreements related to their employees' involvement in certain groups. The NYPD explicitly prohibits officers from knowingly associating with organizations reasonably believed to be engaged in criminal activities. Now, this list, we believe, is from prior to January 6th.

This is before there was potential sedition that happened at the Capitol, which is an important point if somebody's trying to keep their job. New Jersey does not have a law explicitly forbidding law enforcement or any public officials from being involved in extremist groups, including, like you said, those with white supremacist ties. It's definitely a gap here in that it's questionable.

A few of the people we spoke to like we talked to a detective at the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office in Jersey City, a guy who handles murder investigations, Craig Iacouzzi. He had spoken to us last year. He said he just signed up for the Oath Keepers for an email subscription to receive current events and a different take on the mainstream media perspective, and that he never spoke to anybody from the organization that he was investigated according to his office, and cleared.

Brian Lehrer: The other NYPD officer is a sergeant, I see.

Matt Katz: Yes, and he's really interesting because I ended up speaking to his supervisor a couple of weeks ago, his former supervisor. His claim was that he actually had assigned this NYPD sergeant, Stuart Wohl, to look into the Oath Keepers to monitor them, to see who they were because they could show up at protests in New York City. That's why he signed up and he had a screen name like "New York Cop" or something. He was being transparent about who he was, but he was just lurking there to see what was happening.

He was an undercover and did not realize that the membership list would get hacked several years later and he would get outed as a member. He also was investigated by the NYPD and cleared. Then the fourth person was also cleared. He is the civilian administrator for what's called the New York Guard. It's not the National Guard. It's actually a volunteer force that works alongside the New York National Guard, but they report to the governor. It's a militarized entity.

Ed Keyrouze is the civilian administrator. He was a member of the Oath Keepers according to this list. The state told me. The State Division of Military and Naval Affairs said that they found that he had no understanding of the Oath Keepers' agenda and found no evidence that he used public resources to conduct Oath Keeper activities. He has since severed ties with the organization. He was cleared and is still running this volunteer force. We know of nobody who was outed as an Oath Keeper in this list, who has lost their jobs in New York or New Jersey.

Brian Lehrer: Any other name you want to name? Otherwise, we're out of time.

Matt Katz: No, that's the four, but we're continuing to sift through this stuff. I imagine this is not the last time we're going to get a hacked list of an extremist group and not the last time we're going to have to look through those names to see what local law enforcement officials might be on it.

Brian Lehrer: Matt Katz from WNYC and Gothamist. His latest article on Gothamist, New York and New Jersey Officers Found on an Oath Keepers List a Year Back Still Have Their Jobs. Matt, thanks a lot.

Matt Katz: Thanks a lot, Brian.

 

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