Oath Keepers attorney pleads guilty to Jan. 6 charges

An attorney for the Oath Keepers accused of conspiring with the right-wing militia group’s leader to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election pleaded guilty Wednesday to two charges linked to the Capitol attack. 

Kellye SoRelle, a Texas woman who once served as general counsel for the Oath Keepers, pleaded guilty to entering and remaining on restricted grounds and seeking to corruptly persuade others to destroy evidence. 

She originally faced four criminal charges, the other two linked to a federal obstruction statute that was narrowed by the Supreme Court last month. Those charges were dismissed as part of the plea agreement, though SoRelle acknowledged the allegations against her were based in fact.  

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta accepted SoRelle’s guilty plea. Her sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 17. The Hill has requested comment from her attorney. 

After the 2020 election, SoRelle emerged as a key link between pro-Trump and “Stop the Steal groups.” In addition to serving as general counsel to the Oath Keepers, she was counsel to Latinos for Trump and a member of Lawyers for Trump.  

SoRelle dated Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and became a close confidant as he plotted to stop the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to President Biden.  

During Rhodes’s 2022 trial, prosecutors showed evidence that SoRelle — at Rhodes’s apparent direction — ordered members of the group to “go silent” about their participation in the Capitol attack and to “get busy” deleting evidence of it.  

“CLAM UP,” she wrote in messages. “DO NOT SAY A DAMN THING.” 

When Rhodes took to the stand, he claimed the directive to delete evidence came from SoRelle, not him. Prosecutors suggested he used SoRelle’s phone to put distance between himself and any incriminating activity. 

As part of SoRelle’s plea agreement, she admitted to writing at least one of the messages herself and to “knowingly and willingly” allowing Rhodes to use her phone for the purpose of directing other Oath Keepers to destroy potential evidence. She told Mehta on Wednesday that Rhodes was “doing his own thing” in some messages.  

SoRelle joined Rhodes on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 but did not enter the building. She also accompanied him to a parking garage meeting with then-Proud Boys national chair Enrique Tarrio the day before the Capitol attack. 

She said Wednesday that she understood the role of the certification proceeding — which formally declared Biden the election’s winner — and knew that then-Vice President Mike Pence was present and the role he had assumed in the process.  

Rhodes and four other Oath Keepers were accused of seditious conspiracy for plotting to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. They ascended the Capitol steps on Jan. 6 in a military-style formation and stashed a cache of weapons outside Washington to take up arms at Rhodes’s direction, prosecutors said. 

Rhodes was convicted of sedition and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Kelly Meggs, a co-defendant, was also found guilty of sedition. The other three co-defendants were acquitted of that charge but convicted of different serious felonies. At a separate trial, four more Oath Keepers were convicted of seditious conspiracy. 

SoRelle, who was indicted in August 2022, was among the last Oath Keepers affiliates to face charges. She was initially set to be tried alongside two others with Oath Keepers ties but was deemed not competent to stand trial by evaluators for both the defense and prosecution. 

After spending several months in the Bureau of Prisons’ custody for competency restoration, the agency in February determined SoRelle was fit for trial. Mehta formally entered that finding last month.  

Prosecutors announced last month that a plea agreement had been reached, without describing the deal. SoRelle’s attorney confirmed it in separate court filings that asked U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to order the Justice Department to pay for SoRelle’s travel to Washington, D.C., from Texas, which he did. 

Before SoRelle changed her plea, she was expected to face trial in November.