Two elected Republican constables in the North Penn area — one in Hatfield Township and a second in Hilltown Township — were named in a data leak and an Anti-Defamation League report as two of five Philadelphia area law enforcement officers who at one time held membership in the far-right antigovernment militia group known as Oath Keepers, according to The Inquirer.
Adrian P. Reast, of Hatfield Township, who has been re-elected as constable for nearly 25 years, joined Oath Keepers in 2013, and Roger L. Mullins, of Chalfont Borough, joined Oath Keepers in February 2014, per membership records.
Reast is a former co-owner of Hatboro's Betz Nurseries and a former mental health provider at LifePath Inc. The Inquirer found a Twitter account allegedly connected to Reast started in 2012 — which is now private — that stated Reast was “dedicated to the overthrow of the evil Obama regime.”
According to 2021 General Election results, Reast and Democrat Corinne Landauer won the two six-year seats up for grabs in the Hatfield Township Constable race, with 2,292 total votes and 2,193 total votes, respectively. Democrat David W. Schuetz and Republican Dale L. Foster received the least votes.
Mullins is in his second six-year term as Hilltown Township constable. He had no competition in the November 2021 General Election and received 3,775 total votes.
Mullins, per membership records, joined Oath Keepers in February 2014. He then wrote a letter to the editor of the Bucks County Courier Times and identified himself as a member of the Bucks County Chapter of the Oath Keepers. In his letter, Mullins criticized the Central Bucks Special Response Team for buying a “mine-resistant ambush-protected military vehicle” that is “designed for a specific mission on the battlefield and has no place in our community policing.”
The newspaper was unable to confirm if the law enforcement officials were still active with the group and if they are involved in any way.
According to state law, constables are peace officers who answer to the governor of Pennsylvania, since they are considered members of the executive branch of Pennsylvania. However, they are elected by local voters to six-year terms and perform services for Magisterial District courts.
Constables are charged by Pennsylvania law to maintain order at election polling places and are the only peace officers permitted at the polls on Election Day.
According to the PA Constable website, constables “can arrest by warrant and can conduct warrantless arrests for felonies and breaches of the peace, including warrantless arrests for felony violations of drug laws.” They do not need to have a carry license for their weapon, per the law. Constables also swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of Pennsylvania and the United States.
All in all, according to The Inquirer, the ADL report listed four elected officials in Pennsylvania — three constables and one Tarentum Borough council member — and 19 active police officers in the state as individuals who had at one point held Oath Keepers membership.
The Inquirer said the Pennsylvania officials either declined involvement with Oath Keepers or declined comment. North Penn Now contacted Reast via Facebook Messenger, who did not respond by press time. An attempt to contact Mullins was unsuccessful.
According to an ADL disclaimer, Reast, Mullins, and any other person’s name in the Oath Keepers database is not proof “that they were or are still an Oath Keeper, that they hold or held all or some Oath Keepers ideology or viewpoints, or that they ever actively participated in Oath Keepers’ activities.”
Read more on The Inquirer investigation here.
In 2019, an anonymous hacker made the Oath Keepers’ membership rolls and its web server public following a data breach, per the report. The leak was obtained through the nonprofit journalist collective “Distributed Denial of Secrets” and contained everything from emails and chat logs to 40,000 entries on membership information. This then led to the ADL Center for Extremism to release a report that analyzed the data.
It found nearly 1,500 Oath Keepers memberships in Pennsylvania alone, and 38,000 nationwide. At least 13 police officers with the Chicago Police Department were identified as current or former Oath Keepers.
As Mullins described in his letter, Oath Keepers see themselves as a nonpartisan association whose duty is to defend the Constitution and disobey unconstitutional orders, such as disarmament of Americans, conducting warrantless searches, or detaining Americans as enemies in violation of a jury trial.
Like any political following, it all starts with one person with a vision and determination. In the case of Oath Keepers, that person was veteran Army paratrooper and libertarian Elmer Stewart Rhodes. In 2009, his vision, per The Inquirer, was recruiting former law enforcement members, first responders, and military who believed in upholding the oath of the Constitution and defending it against enemies, foreign and domestic.
The Oath Keepers website — oathkeepers.org — no longer exists. Oath Keepers were incorporated in 2009 as a nonprofit in Nevada, however, the IRS never granted them tax-exempt status. The IRS did however grant tax-exempt status to Oath Keepers Education Foundation in Louisiana in 2019.
An active Utah Oath Keepers website claims that it is “a non-political, constitutional service organization composed of skilled volunteers that include current and formerly serving military, police, first responders, and trained civilians.” It further describes itself as “a group of proud patriots, dedicated to upholding the constitution of the United States.”
The Oath Keepers Code of Ethics begins:
“As an Oathkeeper, my fundamental duty is to serve the community; to safeguard lives and property; to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation and the peaceful against violence or disorder; and to respect the constitutional rights of all to liberty, equality, and justice. I will keep my private life unsullied and will behave in a manner that does not bring discredit to me, my brothers and sisters, and this organization. I will maintain calm in the face of danger, scorn or ridicule; develop self-restraint; and be constantly mindful of the welfare of others.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Oath Keepers as an organization with “tens of thousands of present and former law enforcement officials and military veterans as members, is one of the largest far-right antigovernment groups in the U.S.”
The FBI and fellow federal authorities have accused Rhodes of stockpiling weapons and the rallying force behind the Jan. 6 insurrection, alongside, as USA Today claims, the Proud Boys and Three Percenters. According to The New York Times, about a dozen of the rioters were Oath Keepers members.
According to Pennsylvania law, a Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas judge can only remove a constable from office for “misfeasance, malfeasance, or acts of oppression.” If a court finds that a constable committed any of the three, then the court may find the constable unfit for office.
