Jason Van Tatenhove worked as the national media director for the Oath Keepers in 2015 and 2016. It is reported that he 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.

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A former spokesperson for the militant far-right group Oath Keepers — an organisation whose members were among those who descended on the Capitol Jan. 6, 2021 — will sit before the House committee investigating the Capitol riots on Tuesday.

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Speaking to Colorado news organisation 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.

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Speaking to FOX31, Van Tatenhove, who is now a journalist with a Colorado news podcast, said 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 precedent to this group and how they have radicalised.”

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“I purged my life of that world years ago,” he added.

The US House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection have so far held six public hearings, which began on June 9 and have all featured new revelations about the events leading up to the attacks.

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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 behaviour in the hours leading up to the riots.