Who Is Jason Van Tatenhove, the Former Oath Keepers Spokesperson Testifying Before Jan. 6 Panel Tuesday?
A former spokesperson for the militant far-right group Oath Keepers — an organization whose members were among those who descended on the Capitol Jan. 6, 2021 — will sit before the House committee investigating the Capitol riots Tuesday.
Jason Van Tatenhove worked as the national media director for the Oath Keepers in 2015 and 2016 and, according to multiple reports, will be among several people with ties to extremist groups set to testify in the July 12 hearing. He was not at the Capitol riot.
Speaking to the Colorado news outlet FOX31, Van Tatenhove said he got "a lot of inside access" but stopped short of calling himself a member of the group, instead saying he was an employee.
"I was the propagandist for the Oath Keepers," he told the outlet.
Jim Urquhart/Alamy Jason Van Tatenhove in 2016
Van Tatenhove, who is now a journalist with a Colorado news podcast, explained to FOX31 that before becoming an employee of the group, he reported on standoffs in which they were involved: "I covered three standoffs and by the third one there was a job offer, so I took the job. I was brought on as a national media director."
He said that he wants to give the committee "a historical precedence to this group and how they have radicalized."
"I purged my life of that world years ago," he added.
Speaking on his podcast, Van Tatenhove confirmed that he would be appearing before the committee.
"The committee has thousands of hours of video footage and more than 100,000 pages of documents," he wrote in a description of the podcast episode. "I have been asked to give a historical overview of the Oath Keepers and violent militias later this month."
Jim Urquhart/Alamy Jason Van Tatenhove
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So far, the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection have held six public hearings, which began on June 9 and have all featured new revelations about the events leading up to the attacks.
The committee has heard testimony from Justice Department officials who detailed Trump's unrelenting pressure to find evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election, Capitol Police officers who fought off Trump supporters, and some former White House staffers, who have detailed the former president's alleged behavior in the hours leading up to the riots.
Tuesday's hearing will be the panel's first since the shocking June 28 testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who alleged that Donald Trump was aware his supporters were armed in D.C. on Jan. 6, and that he lunged at his Secret Service detail in the car in an attempt to reach the Capitol that day.
