ORLANDO, Fla. — As rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, 21-year-old Kissimmee resident William Isaacs and his fellow Oath Keepers, clad in battle gear, climbed up the steps in a military-style “stack” to get to the building’s Columbus Doors on Jan. 6, court documents say.
There, they joined the mob attacking police who were guarding the doors, according to federal prosecutors. Minutes later, Isaacs and his anti-government militia group were among those who shoved and pushed past officers through the doors into the Capitol Rotunda.
Authorities say the Oath Keepers directed supporters of then-President Donald Trump to the Senate wing in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
“The fight’s not over!” Isaacs yelled as he waved rioters down the hallways towards the Senate, court records said. The Oath Keepers later retreated after officers deployed a chemical spray on the mob.
Isaacs is one of four men recently arrested for their alleged roles in organizing the Oath Keepers to break into the Capitol, bringing the total number of members charged in the attack up to 16. Isaacs is accused of conspiracy, destroying government property, obstructing an official proceeding, entering a restricted building, civil disorder and aiding and abetting, according to a May 26 superseding indictment.
The Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group, have become a focal point for federal investigators, who have so far charged about 440 people in the riot, in which five people died. Out of 16 members indicted, at least seven are Florida residents, which experts say shows the organization may have more influence in the state than was previously known.
Isaacs’ attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Before the Capitol riot, the Oath Keepers largely flew under the radar in Florida, said Michael Jensen, a senior researcher at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland.
The loose-knit group, which was formed by former Army paratrooper and Yale Law graduate Stewart Rhodes in 2009 during the Obama administration, claims its members are current and former military and law enforcement officers who pledge to defend the Constitution.
They believe in “baseless conspiracy theories about the federal government working to destroy the liberties of Americans,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups.
“It’s generally an idea that liberal politicians want to go after individuals’ guns and want to take them away, that they are always on the verge of declaring martial law and getting help from foreign governments to impose that martial law to strip individuals of their weapons, put those who refuse in detention camps, and then ultimately, institute a political system based on socialist principles,” Jensen said.
Rhodes has reportedly been referred to as “Person One” in indictments against other Oath Keepers accused of participating in the Jan. 6 riot, but he has not been charged and has denied involvement.
Prosecutors, though, have said the founder had a 97-second phone call with Kelly Meggs just before he and his wife, Connie Meggs, formed a stack with other Oath Keepers to breach the Capitol.
Starting on Nov. 9, the couple from Dunnellon and others are accused of coordinating an effort to disrupt the election certification, which included recruiting others, paramilitary combat trainings, contributing weapons and gear, and paying for hotel rooms in Washington, D.C., the indictment said.
By Dec. 16, Kelly Meggs was boasting online about organizing an alliance between the Oath Keepers and two other far-right groups, the Proud Boys and Three Percenters, according to prosecutors.
Jensen said that Meggs and his wife appeared to have “an outsized impact” on the Oath Keepers. As Florida became a hot spot for events and rallies in the months before the attempted insurrection, the couple hosted “Stop the Steal” rallies to dispute Trump’s defeat and brought in notorious Nixon and Trump adviser Roger Stone — even serving as his personal bodyguards during his visit, the researcher said.
“And then, of course, it looks now like they played a pretty significant role in the lead up to Jan. 6 and the actual events of Jan. 6,” Jensen added.
Isaacs is the youngest member of the 16 indicted Oath Keepers by more than a decade. The second-youngest Oath Keeper charged is 33, while the oldest is 70.
Jensen said it’s uncommon for members of the Oath Keepers to be so young. While anyone interested in joining is welcome, the Oath Keepers usually seek out members who have already built careers as military members or law enforcement officers, he said.
While Jensen added that it is “interesting” to see that the group successfully recruited someone as young as Isaacs, he added that, without more information about the group’s full membership — believed to top 25,000 people nationwide — it’s difficult to know if it represents a trend toward a new generation of extremists or if it’s an anomaly.
The group’s influence in Florida may have gone unnoticed, too, because anti-government extremism is trending away from being dependent on group membership and toward individual radicalization, said Freddy Cruz, a research analyst with the SPLC.
More people are beginning to believe and even act on the extremist ideology without ever formally joining a group, allowing some groups to go unrecognized while their ideas spread.
“The anti-government movements used to have a very heavy presence on places like Facebook,” Cruz said. “But what we found over the past year at least … was that we’re seeing a lot of the ideas around these extremist groups move beyond just established organizations.”
