A lawyer who represented the Oath Keepers pleaded guilty on Aug. 21 to two charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Kellye SoRelle, who was general counsel for the Oath Keepers and a close associate of its founder, appeared before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington and pleaded guilty to a felony count of obstructing justice and a misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.
She is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 17, 2025. She faces up to 20 years in prison, but if Mehta follows sentencing guidelines, she will receive no more than 16 months behind bars.
SoRelle, a former prosecutor in Texas, was arrested in the state in September 2022.
After her arrest, medical experts concluded that she was mentally incompetent to stand trial. In November 2023, she reported to a federal Bureau of Prisons facility for treatment. In July, Mehta ruled that she had recovered to an extent that she could understand the nature of her charges and could assist in her defense.
SoRelle was photographed with Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and told a group chat on that day that people “can’t stand down.” She is a former girlfriend of Rhodes, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and other charges and is serving an 18-year sentence.
A court filing accompanying the guilty plea reads, “Although SoRelle did not personally enter the Capitol building on January 6, she understood the role those inside and outside the building, like herself, played in delaying the certification proceeding that had been taking place inside the Capitol.”
SoRelle admitted to obstructing justice by encouraging others to destroy electronic evidence of their participation in Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol breach. She also admitted to being on Capitol grounds that day.
The plea agreement saw two other counts, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, dropped.
She has said previously that she went to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including in testimony to a U.S. House committee, but there is no evidence she went inside the building.
SoRelle told the panel that she didn’t like how people went inside the Capitol, disrupting a certification of electoral votes that was being held by Congress.
“Anybody with half a brain would know ... if you were going to do something stupid like this and you were a Trump supporter, you wouldn’t have done it on this day, because there was evidence that I know, because groups were working on, presented through, and I didn’t present it, but was being sent up from the different states regarding the issues in the different elections,” she said.
“We, personally, wanted them to go through the congressional hearing and actually have the meetings and be able to do whatever it was. I’m not saying that it would have been successful; I’m not saying there would have been pressure for that. What I’m saying is, is that we would have seen that process occur.”
When the certification was called off, the two houses of Congress were meeting separately to go over objections to electoral votes from several states.
After the Capitol was cleared, Congress reconvened and certified President Joe Biden as the winner of the election over then-President Donald Trump.
