Elmer Stewart Rhodes III was born in 1966[4] in Fresno, California.[5] His father was a U.S. Marine and his mother worked on a farm.[5] Rhodes wrote about his father abandoning his mother and him when he was three years old, and that he grew up with his mother and her Mexican-American family.[6] In a 2008 blog post, Rhodes described himself as "mixed-race" and said he had "American-Indian" and Hispanic maternal ancestors.[4]
Education and career
Rhodes attended high school in Las Vegas, then joined the U.S. Army and was honorably discharged after seven months, the result of a spinal injury sustained during airborne school.[7][4][5][8]
After attending community college,[6] Rhodes switched to studying political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, while parking cars to make money.[9] After graduating in 1998,[5] he worked as a staffer for RepublicanCongressmanRon Paul.[8] Rhodes volunteered for Paul's 2008 presidential campaign and later complained that political opponents of Paul linked Paul to hate groups and racists.[4]
On December 8, 2015, Rhodes was disbarred by the Montana Supreme Court for conduct violating the Montana Rules of Professional Conduct, after refusing to respond to two bar grievances filed against him in the federal district court of Arizona.[12][13]
Under his leadership in 2013, the Oath Keepers instructed its members to form "Citizen Preservation" teams, which included militias, to operate in communities across the US meant to defend citizens against the government intentionally letting the country descend into chaos then declaring martial law and scrapping the constitution, stating that "They are preparing to control and contain us, and to shoot us, but not preparing to feed us."[17][18][4]
Rhodes is reported to have taken inspiration from the notion that Adolf Hitler could have been stopped if German soldiers and police had refused to follow orders.[20]
Rhodes has promoted the discredited theory of nullification, asserting that U.S. states may disregard federal laws.[4]
In the days prior to January 6, 2021, Rhodes and others traveled to Washington, D.C., where they armed themselves with firearms and tactical gear.[14] En route to D.C., Rhodes personally spent $20,000 to purchase "a small arsenal".[27] On January 6, 2021, Rhodes entered "restricted Capitol grounds" where he directed Oath Keepers members via telephone and text, telling them which positions to take up around the building.[28] Four days after the attack, Rhodes attended a meeting where he was recorded saying "My only regret is that they should have brought rifles... We should have brought rifles. We could have fixed it right then and there. I'd hang fucking Pelosi from the lamppost."[29]
Rhodes married Tasha Adams in 1994, after meeting her a few years earlier in Las Vegas.[41][5] When they met, Adams was 18 years old and working at an Arthur Murray Dance studio, and Rhodes was a 25-year-old college student.[9] Adams worked as an exotic dancer to financially support Rhodes' education during their marriage.[9] Prior to their marriage, Rhodes accidentally shot himself in the face with a .22 handgun after dropping it, leaving him using a prosthetic eyeball.[5][9]
Adams filed for divorce in 2018, accusing Rhodes of emotional and physical abuse. The divorce was granted days before Rhodes was sentenced for his part in the January 6 attack.[42] Adams and Rhodes have six children, including Dakota Adams, their eldest son, who uses his mother's maiden name;[43][11] Sequoia Adams; and Sedona Adams.[44] The family lived in New Haven and several states in the western United States.[11]
Dakota Adams has said that his father was abusive to him, his mother, and his siblings; he said that Rhodes has sabotaged his children's homeschooling and that the family "lived in extreme isolation in one particular cultural bubble in increasingly paranoid and militant right-wing political spheres everywhere we moved in the country, until eventually we ended up in Montana."[43] Rhodes required them to line up with their backs to him at ATMs and gas pumps to be on the lookout for assassins, and to unload groceries from the family vehicle one-armed so as to have a hand free in case of attack.[45] The children suffered severe medical neglect and were illiterate, and Dakota only learned his multiplication tables at age 19 so that he could pass his high school equivalency test. In the spring of 2024, Dakota Adams announced that he is running for the Montana House of Representatives.[43]
Luke, Timothy W (2022). "Three Decades of Civil War in the United States: 'Don't Tread on Me'". Telos. 2022 (198): 141–148. doi:10.3817/0322198141. S2CID247475451.