Estranged Family Of Oath Keepers Founder Terrified Trump Will Win And Pardon Him
Stewart Rhodes is serving 18 years in prison for his part in the January 6 insurrection.
We all have good reasons to fear another four years of Donald Trump, but Tasha Adams and her family may have a lot of us beat — because if Trump wins this election, there is a very good chance that he will pardon her ex-husband, Stewart Rhodes.
And if that happens, they feel there’s a pretty good chance he’ll kill them all.
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, is currently serving 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy, for his part in the January 6 insurrection. Trump has made it clear that he is open to pardoning those arrested for storming the Capitol that day, “if they’re innocent,” which he surely believes they all are. After all, they were acting on his orders.
In a truly heartbreaking interview with USA Today, Tasha and her son Dakota Adams (who took his mother’s last name after the divorce) shared the incredible relief they felt when Rhodes was sent to prison, how he abused their family mentally and physically for two decades and why they would fear for their lives should he be released.
Via USA Today:
“If Stewart is released from prison, my minor siblings, especially, need to not be in the United States any more, before he has a chance to get to Montana,” said Dakota Adams. “I have absolutely no faith in any protection of the law whatsoever.”
At the core of their worry is that Rhodes, who has now spent more than two years in prison, is likely stewing and obsessed with how he believes he has been wronged by his family, Tasha and Dakota Adams said. Tasha Adams said it was her testimony in Rhodes’ prosecution that almost certainly prevented him from being released on bail before his trial — another thing he will resent, she said.
“I informed them all about his escape tunnels and the abuse and how he was always plotting to escape if federal agents came,” Adams said. “I’m sure he thinks if he was out on bail, he would have had more control over his legal case, and he would have won.”
Tasha and Dakota Adams also shared that Stewart has a “kill list” in his head at all times, an anecdote confirmed by former Oath Keepers spokesperson Jason Van Tatenhove. This list, they say, includes their family and, naturally, Nancy Pelosi.
Rhodes’s lawyers are denying that he has a mental list of people he’d like to kill and insist that the family is not in danger, which is doubtlessly incredibly comforting to Adams and her children.
Part of Rhodes’s MO as the leader and founder of the Oath Keepers was specifically to recruit current and former law enforcement and military — who were, naturally, required to sign an oath promising not to take anyone’s guns away. So the family is hardly being hyperbolic when they say they don’t think the law will protect them from him.
The thing I’d like to call attention to here, though, is this:
Tasha and Dakota Adams describe the peak Oath Keeper years of 2016 to 2018 as a chaotic, terrifying regime under the Rhodes dictatorship.
They left Stewart Rhodes in 2018. That would mean that the years when things were the worst for them were also the years when they were with him when Trump was campaigning and in office. That may not be a coincidence. Trump gave these types of people a lot of affirmation and power and it wouldn’t be surprising if some of that power went to their heads. Membership in extremist hate groups and militias like the Oath Keepers grew exponentially under Trump, and it’s happening again now. These groups are not just hateful and violent, they also tend to be extremely patriarchal and misogynistic — and sure, hating women or thinking us inferior doesn’t necessarily mean one is going to engage in domestic violence, but it probably doesn’t help.
Given this, it’s hard to imagine that the Adamses are the only family out there with this particular fear.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
I was very happy when his arrest was announced. Regardless of racist pasts, it's always a source of pride that there's a Rhodes collar.
I listened to Tim Walz on the Smartless podcast this morning while at the gym. My god, what a contrast this election is, it boggles my mind. He is so damn lovely and service oriented and smart and kind. He spoke so eloquently about Kamala and his vision for America, for raising the middle class, for working hard for all people. He quoted Kamala saying, when they arrived at a campaign stop and there was one side of the street in red hats and the other side supporting them, "remember Tim, we work just as hard for that side as for this side." How starkly different that view of America is from Trump's. I simply don't get how so many people like the divisiveness. Jason Bateman rightly analogized it to sports- politics has become SO tribal, my team and yours, and people treat it like Red Sox v Yankees where it's about one side winning, not about working together for what's best in all of us. I wish there were some way to make everyone see that life is not zero sum, that a rising tide lifts all boats, but here we are.... 7 more days. I have to believe there are more people who look towards the light than the dark. If I am wrong, well, dog save us all.