Reading Time: < 1 minute

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

According to an analysis of leaked data by the Anti-Defamation League, six Wisconsin elected officials had memberships with the Oath Keepers, an extremist anti-government group. At least 11 Oath Keepers have been charged with seditious conspiracy or other crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Several of the elected officials from Wisconsin said they were no longer a part of the group, while others did not deny their membership or denounce the group. The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism identified 81 government officials nationwide with connections to the Oath Keepers. Other Wisconsinites on the list were four law enforcement members, three first responders and a member of the military.

The data were compiled from a hacked list of the group’s paid memberships. The leaked information was posted by the Distributed Denial of Secrets, a nonprofit journalist collective.

Sources

Anti-Defamation League: The Oath Keepers Data Leak: Unmasking Extremism in Public Life

Wisconsin State Journal: Elected officials from 6 Wisconsin communities on Oath Keepers membership list

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Journal Sentinel

NPR: In a big Jan. 6 case, Oath Keepers go on trial for seditious conspiracy

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Erin Gretzinger joined Wisconsin Watch as a reporting intern in May 2022. She is a journalism and French major at UW-Madison and will graduate in spring 2023. Erin previously worked for the Wisconsin State Journal as a reporting intern and served as the 2021-22 editor-in-chief at The Badger Herald. She is a recipient of the Jon Wolman Scholarship, the Sigrid Schultz Scholarship and the Joseph Sicherman Award Fund for her academic and reporting work.