(WTTW News)

A Chicago police officer who admitted belonging to the Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group that has clashed with the United States government, will not be fired by city officials — or even disciplined, according to a report released Friday by the city’s watchdog.

The Oath Keepers, whose founder and leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes as part of the Jan. 6 insurrection, is considered by the FBI to be a “large but loosely organized collection of individuals, some who are associated with militias” who have vowed to “not obey unconstitutional (and thus illegal) and immoral orders.”

Representatives of the Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to questions from WTTW News about why Supt. David Brown did not seek the officer’s termination even after they admitted their membership in the Oath Keepers.

A different officer who lied about his ties to the far-right Proud Boys extremist group is set to return to the Chicago Police Department after serving a 120-day suspension. Mayor Lori Lightfoot has defended that discipline as “proportionate.”

A spokesperson for Lightfoot did not immediately respond to questions from WTTW News about how the continued employment of the officer described in Friday’s report squares with her repeated assertion that “there is no place in our police department — or any other city department, for that matter — for white supremacists or other extremist ideology.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the nation’s best-known civil rights organizations, considers the Oath Keepers a “far-right anti-government group.” Founded in 2009, its members have been involved in several violent confrontations with government officials.

John Catanzara, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 7, which represents the officer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WTTW News.

The officer, who was not identified in the report released by Inspector General Deborah Witzburg in keeping with the city’s rules, was listed on the organization’s membership rolls that were released in September, according to Witzburg’s quarterly report.

News coverage of that report prompted the inspector general to ask the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs to open an investigation into the officer.

During that probe, the Chicago Police Department officer “admitted to being a former member of the Oath Keepers, having joined in 2010 or 2011 and having been a member for three to four years,” according to the inspector general’s report.

However, the Bureau of Internal Affairs, known as the BIA, found that that the allegation that the officer was a “member of a far-right terror group as documented in a news article” was not sustained, according to the inspector general’s report.

That prompted the inspector general’s office to ask the Bureau of Internal Affairs to reopen the probe and determine whether “whether the CPD member’s membership in the Oath Keepers itself constitutes a violation of CPD policy,” according to the inspector general’s report.

While the Bureau of Internal Affairs reopened the probe, and met with representatives of the inspector general’s office, the investigation was closed a second time “leaving its original findings unchanged,” according to the inspector general’s report.

Chicago Police Department members are expected to conduct themselves with the highest level of professionalism both on and off-duty, according to a statement from a Chicago Police Department spokesperson.

“Allegations of CPD members violating department policy are investigated thoroughly, and members are afforded due process during the course of these investigations,” according to the statement. “The Bureau of Internal Affairs thoroughly investigated this case and reached a finding of not sustained based on the evidence available.”

Department officials did not answer WTTW questions about how an allegation that the officer admitted to during an investigation could be found “not sustained.”

Chicago Police Department officials “mentioned that memberships into organizations in itself is not a rule violation” during a meeting with representatives of the inspector general’s office, according to the inspector general’s report.

Bureau of Internal Affairs investigators told the inspector general’s office that they could not “compel” the officer “to produce records or documents regarding his membership or affiliation,” according to the inspector general’s report.

However, that is false, according to the inspector general’s report.

“It is plainly within BIA’s authority to compel information and documents from the accused member in furtherance of its investigation if it had determined to do so,” according to the inspector general’s report.

Investigators with the Bureau of Internal Affairs discounted the accuracy of the list of Oath Keepers members, saying it had been “hacked,” and said the group was just “‘anti-government right-wing group’ that had ‘not been documented by the FBI as a terrorist group,’” according to the inspector general’s report.

The Southern Poverty Law Center called on Chicago officials to “adopt clear and unambiguous policies and procedures prohibiting city employees from actively associating with hate and extremist groups.”

 “Any individual who is tasked with protecting the public cannot be trusted to do so equitably when they associate with an openly racist, bigoted and misogynistic organization,” according to the letter to Lightfoot and Chicago police Supt. David Brown from Jeff Tischauser, a senior research analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which seeks to combat extremism across the United States.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]