Cape Cod Commissioner Candidate Beaty Says He Donated To Oath Keepers

CAPE COD, MA — Ronald Beaty, Jr., the former Barnstable County Commissioner and current GOP candidate, was named among hundreds of Massachusetts residents named on a leaked document of Oath Keepers members.

Patch first reported the leaked document on Sept. 8 and, since, Beaty has denied any involvement with the group, stating first on Sept. 10 he wouldn't give "any credence to it."

On Monday, Beaty sent a news release to local media issuing a "definitive statement" on his involvement with the group, and admitting that he made a donation to the Oath Keepers in 2014.

"In 2014, I made a small donation to the group known as THE OATH KEEPERS because I understood the organization to be individual American Patriots swearing allegiance to the United States Constitution," Beaty said.

"I had no idea, at that time, that there may possibly have been some extremist elements within the group," he added.

This statement comes after Beaty went on the defensive, largely on social media, citing political motivations as the reason his name was included.

On Sept. 12, Beaty formally asked the Anti-Defamation League, who published the list of names, to issue him a public apology "and refrain from any further disparagement of my current political candidacy for Barnstable County Commissioner on Cape Cod."

The same day, he posted to Twitter that he would be "exploring pursuit of appropriate legal action for recently politically motivated attacks."

On Sept. 13, Beaty took to Twitter to ask if the ADL is "a nefarious organization composed of unpatriotic Communist subversives (possibly aligned with the Chinese Communist Party)?"

Anti-Defamation League Report

The group Distributed Denial of Secrets collected and distributed the data, which the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism compiled into a report showing that many of Oath Keepers 38,000 members work as police and first responders, in the military or as elected officials and government employees.

The Oath Keepers, founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, is a loosely organized conspiracy theory-fueled group whose members vow to defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and promote the belief the federal government is out to strip citizens of their civil liberties while painting its followers as defenders against tyranny.

There are 550 Oath Keepers members living in Massachusetts, according to the report.

Read more: MA Elected Officials, First Responders Among Oath Keeper Ranks: Report

Though Beaty said he's had no involvement with the group for nearly a decade, and noted that the group has "some extremist elements", he also stated:

"Additionally, nothing that I have said should be remotely construed as denouncing the honored patriotism or sincere dedication to our United States Constitution of those persons who hold these admirable principles in such high regard."

Beaty is the GOP candidate for Barnstable County Commissioner after he ran unopposed in the primary election. He faces incumbent candidate Ronald Bergstrom in the general election on Nov. 8.