North Dakota sheriff says he is not member of Oath Keepers, denounces group

BOWMAN COUNTY, N.D. — A North Dakota county sheriff linked to the controversial Oath Keepers group says he’s now not a member of the group.

Bowman County Sheriff Frank Eberle was amongst 81 North Dakotans, 514 Minnesotans and 167 South Dakotans included in a leaked membership roster of the Oath Keepers, labeled an extremist group related to the militia motion by the Anti-Defamation League Middle on Extremism.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in collaboration with Distributed Denial of Secrets and techniques,

leaked

the roster on Sept. 6.

Eberle acknowledged his previous membership, however stated he hasn’t been a member of the group for years — together with most of his tenure as sheriff.

“On its face it appeared like an excellent deal, the Oath Keepers, as a result of that is all we’ve got is the legislation of the land, the Structure and such,” Eberle informed the Dickinson Press on Monday, Sept. 19. “However after they pulled that silly s— on Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C, I wished nothing to do with them. I denounced them at that time.”

The Oath Keepers got here below scrutiny

for its involvement within the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol,

the Anti-Defamation League stated.

Explaining his place on the election protests that occurred on the Capitol main into the inauguration of President Biden, Eberle stated that he denounced the actions that resulted in tens of millions of {dollars} of vandalism injury to federal property, a number of Capitol Law enforcement officials being injured and one protester being killed by legislation enforcement after trying to breach a barrier.

The FBI has

described

the Oath Keepers as being a “giant however loosely organized assortment of militia who imagine that the federal authorities has been co-opted by a shadowy conspiracy that’s attempting to strip Americans of their rights.”

The Oath Keepers was based in 2009 by U.S. Military veteran Stewart Rhodes, who has been disbarred as a lawyer in Montana. Rhodes and 10 different Oath Keepers have been

charged with seditious conspiracy

for collaborating within the violent protests and Eberle agrees they need to be.

“That is not the way in which anyone ought to have acted. That was undoubtedly a legal act, what these individuals did,” Eberle stated. “I’ve by no means had any exercise, correspondence or verbal discuss with anybody from the group, Stewart Rhodes or anyone like that. I wouldn’t know him if he walked up proper now.”

He added that he give up paying affiliation dues as a member of the group sooner or later in 2018 or 2019 as a result of he now not felt it was helpful to him in serving and defending the individuals of Bowman County.

“I simply sort of misplaced curiosity in it as a result of it wasn’t serving to me regionally,” he stated.

Eberle argued that conflating everybody included on a company’s membership database as conspiracy mongering subversives is a cynical strategy to strategy conveying info to the general public.

He added that he believes most Oath Keepers are “purple blooded Individuals who love this nation” who shouldn’t be maligned as an entire just because “another idiots had accomplished some stuff.”

In his tenure, Eberle has drawn criticism and sparked controversy.

In late

January

, he responded to the Biden administration’s 30-by-30 initiative, a worldwide initiative for governments to designate 30% of Earth’s land and ocean space as protected areas by 2030, with selection phrases. He denounced it as a sinister land seize that ignored due course of, and stated he would deputize residents to stop federal brokers from enacting it.

“With out due course of, I’d use the legislation to my fullest benefit to guard non-public property. I’d deputize as many individuals as essential to stop the federal authorities from taking it away from any person,” he stated on the time.