North Carolina state representative accused of involvement with anti-government militia — again

(WGHP) — A new report named a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives as an “off-the-books” member of American Patriot 3 Percent, and this isn’t the first time his name has surfaced in connection with an anti-government paramilitary group.

On Saturday, ProPublica, an independent news outlet focused on investigative journalism, published “ Inside the Turbulent, Secret World of the AP3 Militia ,” a report that details the inner workings and leadership of the American Patriot 3 Percent based on obtained records, Telegram chats and conversations with members and leadership, both current and former.

Messages obtained by ProPublica claim that state Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-District 79) is an “off-the-books” member of the organization. The report does not detail what being an “off-the-books member” entails as far as membership activity goes, only that his name was referenced in chats obtained by the organization.

This is the second anti-government militia group to which Kidwell has been linked since he was identified as a dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers in 2022. Similarly, there has been no indication that Kidwell was directly involved in any Oath Keeper activity.

Rep. Keith Kidwell has served as a representative since 2019. Kidwell is the leader of North Carolina’s House Freedom Caucus. He was, at one point, a deputy whip for the Republicans but stepped down from that role in 2023 after a comment at the expense of a fellow representative’s personal abortion story drew ire.

FOX8 has reached out to Kidwell’s office for comment.

American Patriot 3 Percent

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center , a civil rights nonprofit that catalogs hate groups and provides legal resources for civil rights cases, AP3 is made up of “Three Percenters,” who subscribed to “a sub-ideology or common belief that falls within the larger antigovernment militia movement.” AP3 is an “attempt to organize a national network of Three Percenter groups across the country.”

“Three Percenterism is at its core a vanguard extremist movement that claims to be ready to carry out armed resistance to perceived tyranny,” the SPLC writes. “Their perceptions of tyranny emanate from the radical conspiracy theories and paranoia rooted in the decades-old antigovernment extremist movement, and have repeatedly led to violence against America’s law enforcement, citizens and residents.”

In large part, the article discusses the background and habits of the national leader of the AP3, Scot Steddon, and the impact of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. AP3 members were part of the riot at the Capitol but had been instructed not to wear any AP3 gear. Other militia or anti-government groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys ultimately gained huge amounts of national attention as their leadership was arrested and jailed for the attempted insurrection.

“Despite the riot and its fallout, militias are far from extinct,” reporter Joshua Kaplan of ProPublica writes. “AP3 has expanded at a dramatic pace since Jan. 6, while keeping much of its activity out of view. In a matter of months after Jan. 6, rioters went from pariahs to heroes in the rhetoric of prominent Republican politicians. By the summer of 2021, people were enlisting in AP3, saying that Jan. 6 inspired them to join.”

With recruitment apparently booming in the wake of Jan. 6, North Carolina-based chapter head Burley Ross told ProPublica that, during the 2022 election season, he approached two sheriff candidates and asked, “If the federal government wanted you to take someone’s guns, what would you do?”

The Republican candidate, identified by ProPublica via obtained messages as Scott Hammonds, allegedly said “I’m 100% not taking someone’s guns,” while the Democratic candidate said he would “enforce the law.”

“Ross suggested that if [the Democratic candidate] tried that, someone would leave the encounter in a body bag,” ProPublica reports.

Hammonds won the election and is now sheriff of Beaufort County, one of the counties in Kidwell’s District 79, and an alleged “off-the-books” member of the AP3. Hammonds did not provide comment for the ProPublica article.

Oath Keepers

The SPLC says that the Oath Keepers officially launched with a rally in Massachusetts on Apr. 19, 2009, as a reaction to the election of Pres. Barack Obama. The highly militaristic anti-government militia consists of national leadership and state, county and local chapters, similar to how AP3 has operated.

In 2021, Distributed Denial of Secrets , a nonprofit that “specializes in publishing, archiving and analyzing leaked and hacked datasets,” published a database of dues-paying Oath Keeper members. The following year, the ADL combed through the documents, naming elected officials and public safety officials who appeared in its pages.

Kidwell was among three elected officials from North Carolina named, alongside Rep. Mike Clampitt (R-District 119) and Watauga County Board of Education member and one-time police officer Jason K. Cornett.

At the time, Kidwell was quoted as telling RawStory : “I am not going to exacerbate a theft of data from any organization, I’m going to refuse comment since the information was ill-gotten. That is just protection of people’s rights.”

It is important to note that the document only lists anyone who had ever paid dues to the Oath Keepers, with no indication of if they actually participated as members of the group.

The Oath Keepers database indicates Kidwell paid due to the group starting in 2012, about three years after the group’s 2009 founding by Elmer “Stewart” Rhodes , who is now in prison for his actions at Jan. 6, alongside numerous other members of the group, including a former High Point police officer.

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