“The Oath Keepers convictions illuminate the limits of the American right to free speech and the future of the militia movement,” Amy Cooter writes.
The House Select Committee is set to investigate the January 6 Riot on July 21, 2022, during its latest public hearing. At the heart of the issue is Trump’s possible engagement with rioters and fringe nationalist militia groups such as the Proud Boys, Three Percenters and Oath Keepers. Amy Cooter, a senior lecturer in sociology at Vanderbilt University and militia expert, explains what drives these groups and their complicated relationship with Trump and the government.
“The January 6th hearings are making clear that American democracy is increasingly threatened by white nationalists in the Republican Party who are determined to perpetuate disinformation about the 2020 presidential election in order to hold onto power through the same system they deem illegitimate,” Author & Research Scholar Sara Kamali writes.
The seditious-conspiracy charges filed against Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers militia, along with 10 other defendants, opens a new and significant chapter in the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Can the U.S. Department of Justice clear the First Amendment hurdle. If any case fits the seditious-conspiracy crime, perhaps this is it, law professor Timothy Wicks writes.
A fear that he had already seen his family for the last time gripped Congressman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, as he sheltered in the U.S. House chamber while an angry, riotous mob pounded on the locked door, which security guards hurriedly blockading with furniture.
Mississippi Journalism and Education Group is a a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization (EIN 85-1403937) for the state, devoted to going beyond partisanship and publishing solutions journalism for the Magnolia State and all of its people.
125 S. Congress Street #1324
Jackson, MS 39201
[email protected]
[email protected]
601-362-6121
The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).