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Part 2

The Wall Street Journal posted the rescue video with a story about Johnson on Jan. 15, 2021. The Journal referred to the Oath Keepers as an “anti-government militia group,” a term the group flatly rejects.

“We were there as a force of good,” Oath Keepers member Roberto Minuta, who was also part of the rescue operation, told The Epoch Times. “I was with the Oath Keepers, and we’ve always done positive work, disaster relief, protecting businesses, aiding people that need help.

“We have no history of violence and no intention of violence,” said Minuta, one of nine Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy on January 6. “We are strictly there to protect the First Amendment because we can’t have one side that’s permitted to have free speech and the other that’s not. That’s not America. That’s not what this country was founded on and when that’s gone, my children’s future looks grim.”

Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III told The Epoch Times his group is hated because it reminds those who took an oath of their duty to disobey unlawful orders.

“And so, out of the gate, the left just hated us because of that,” Rhodes said. “Of course, the big smear is that we’re somehow anti-government, even though we’re defending the Constitution. We’re all about defending the Constitution, which established the federal government.”

Geyer said the rescue of the Capitol Police officers was no surprise to him.

A woman hugs each of the 17 U.S. Capitol police officers rescued from the Capitol by the Oath Keepers on Jan. 6, 2021. (Rico La Starza, Archive.org/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
“The Oath Keepers have been working as a volunteer auxiliary police force around the country now for well over a decade,” Geyer said. “It’s what one might expect that the police would seek Oath Keepers assistance if there’s a crowd-control issue or an issue related to police movements, or if the police needed assistance for whatever reason.