WASHINGTON — Editor's note: This story was published on Sept. 1, 2022. If you are looking for the June 8, 2023, story about Kellye SoRelle's attorney saying she is not competent for trial, click here.
Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Thursday against Oath Keepers general counsel Kellye SoRelle, accusing her of conspiracy and obstruction in connection with the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.
The grand jury indictment was filed Thursday in the Western District of Texas, where SoRelle and Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes live. Rhodes and other Oath Keepers were indicted on multiple charges, including seditious conspiracy, in January. SoRelle told CBS News after Rhodes’ arrest she had temporarily assumed duties as acting president of the militia group in Rhodes’ stead. SoRelle is not representing Rhodes or any other Oath Keepers in their ongoing criminal cases.
In indictment includes four counts against SoRelle, three of which are felonies:
- Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding
- Obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting
- Entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds
- Obstruction of justice – tampering with documents
The indictment does not contain description of any of the evidence or alleged actions beyond the counts themselves, although count four – obstruction of justice – does indicate SoRelle is accused of attempting to “corruptly persuade other persons” to withhold records and documents from a federal grand jury and to alter or destroy potential evidence.
SoRelle ran in the Republican primary for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 2020 and was involved with both Lawyers for Trump and Latinos for Trump, a group with links to former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio. She has continued to promote the unfounded claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent and suggested as recently as this week that former President Donald Trump should have deployed the military in response.
In response to a tweet from another user on Tuesday asking if there was a “pathway to getting the election correctly reversed,” SoRelle responded: “Hence why a couple of us legitimately argued the insurrection act. We NEEDED A LAWFUL Election in 2020.”
A day prior to the assault on the U.S. Capitol Building, SoRelle was filmed by British documentarian Nick Quested participating in a meeting with Tarrio, Rhodes and others in the garage of the Phoenix Hotel in D.C. During testimony before the January 6th Committee in June, Quested said he wasn’t able to hear what the group was discussing, although the Justice Department has alleged the Capitol was discussed.
SoRelle also signed on to a failed lawsuit in Texas after the Capitol riot arguing Congress was “illegitimate” and asking a judge to invalidate the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. A judge later dismissed that lawsuit.
It was not immediately clear whether SoRelle was being represented by another attorney. The indictment unsealed Thursday named her in an individual case and not as part of the Oath Keepers group set to begin trial in November.
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