The chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party, who is a leading figure in the campaign to unseat Liz Cheney, is also a member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group and was at the pro-Trmp rally that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, according to The Daily Beast’s congressional reporter Sam Brodey.
Brodey writes that “when the Department of Justice indicted members of the Oath Keepers last week for their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, GOP chairman Frank Eathorne might have taken more notice of the arrests than others.
Eathorne, who was revealed in a leak to be one of 191 Wyoming-based members of the far-right militia group, was in Washington for protests on Jan. 6. But Eathorne is no rank-and-file fringe crank. He is the sitting chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party,” according to The Daily Beast.
His top position has made him one of the more influential Republican officials in the country. And rather than remain neutral, Brodey noted that Eathorne supported an effort by the party to formally censure Cheney and has been one of the top figures fighting to defeat her.
However, the report notes, the recent Oath Keepers indictments mean that Eathorne’s aggressive efforts to keep the pressure on Cheney—in hopes of replacing her with a MAGA acolyte—are going to be complicated by his association with an extremist group facing grave federal criminal charges. Eleven members of the Oath Keepers, including the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, have been charged with “seditious conspiracy.”
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These charges cover the specific crime of conspiring to overthrow the government or disrupt its functioning.
As noted by Brodey, “Eathorne was not mentioned in the federal indictment of Oath Keepers, and he has not been arrested or charged with any offense in relation to Jan. 6.” But that could change at any moment.
