What you need to know about the report on the Oath Keepers members

After a nonprofit collective published the membership rolls of the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers, the Anti-Defamation League on Tuesday reported that of the more than 38,000 members in the country, more than 470 work in law enforcement or are members of the military.

The Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Extremism drilled into data released by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets last September. Some members of the Oath Keepers allegedly working in law enforcement include police chiefs and sheriffs.

Here’s what the list means and more about the groups involved:

Last September, DDoSecrets leaked a list of the more than 38,000 alleged members of the Oath Keepers in the United States. The list includes the names of people who signed up and paid dues to the organization.

The leak came months after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. Some of those accused of taking part in the riot were members of the Oath Keepers, an antigovernment group.

The Associated Press reported that appearing in the Oath Keepers’ database wasn’t necessarily proof that a person was ever an active member of the group or shared its beliefs.

Some people on the list contacted by AP said they were briefly members and were no longer affiliated with the group. Some told AP they were never dues-paying members.

Oath Keepers was founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes and is a far-right militia group that recruits current and former law enforcement, military, and first responders. The loosely organized group often touts conspiracy theories and its members vow to defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

The group also promotes the belief that the federal government is trying to strip citizens of civil liberties, and promotes its members as a line of defense against tyranny.

DDoSecrets is a collective of transparency advocates that specialize in leaking information to journalists. In the past, DDoSecrets has leaked police files and correspondence among Russian oligarchs and Ukrainian nationalist terrorists.

The Anti-Defamation League is an international Jewish organization that specializes in civil rights law. The U.S.-based organization also identifies extremist groups.

The ADL drilled down into the massive Oath Keepers database to identify more than 470 alleged members the organization believes are members of law enforcement and military.

This article contains information from the Associated Press.