The man in control of the Utah-based rightwing militia Oath Keepers USA, a recent spinoff of the national organization first established by Stewart Rhodes in 2009, is a former Las Vegas metropolitan police department (LVMPD) homicide detective who left the force in acrimony after advocating “race war”.
The revelations about Robert “Bobby” Kinch, now of Duck Creek, Utah, come from public records, online materials and the work of a longtime infiltrator of the patriot movement in the Pacific north-west, who provided vital evidence to the Guardian captured inside Kinch’s home.
The findings show that four years on from January 6, the Oath Keepers, who played a central role in fomenting that day’s insurrection in Washington, have not disappeared but have continued quietly adding law-enforcement officers to their ranks.