Kellye SoRelle, alleged Jan. 6 participant and Oath Keepers attorney, charged with conspiracy and obstruction of justice
A Texas attorney has been charged for her alleged role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Kellye SoRelle, 43, is accused of witness tampering and conspiracy, according to an indictment obtained by CBS News.
SoRelle, who confirmed earlier this year to CBS News that she acted as president of the Oath Keepers after the arrest of founder Stewart Rhodes, was arrested Thursday morning after a U.S. attorney signed issued an indictment against her Wednesday.
The New York Times was first to report on the indictment.
According to the indictment, between December 2020 and January 2021, SoRelle attempted to "corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede" Congress from certifying the 2020 election and "did aid and abet others known and unknown to the Grand Jury to do the same." SoRelle, according to the charging documents, planned to impede the peaceful transfer of power.
She is accused of unlawfully entering the U.S. Capitol complex on Jan. 6, as well as tampering with documents when she allegedly tried to persuade people to "withhold records, documents and other objects" from the Grand Jury tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 riot.
SoRelle also sought to "alter, destroy, mutilate, and conceal objects with intent to impair the objects' integrity and availability for use in such a Grand Jury investigation," the charging documents said.
According to an individual familiar with the matter, SoRelle was present in a Washington, D.C., parking garage where Rhodes and Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio met just a day before the attack. A documentary film crew captured the meeting and the footage was featured in one of the House January 6 Committee's hearings earlier this year. Tarrio has also been charged with seditious conspiracy and pleaded not guilty.
She will make her initial appearance sometime after 11 a.m. CT in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, at the courthouse in Austin.
SoRelle is one of several Oath Keeper members arrested for their role in the riot, including Rhodes. The group's leader is in pretrial detention in a Washington, D.C.-area jail as he awaits trial later this year on seditious conspiracy charges. He has pleaded not guilty in the case.
Back in January, SoRelle told CBS News about her role within the Oath Keepers, saying she'd temporarily taken over the group after Rhodes was arrested.
"I am currently acting as President of Oath Keepers in lieu of Mr. Rhodes until he is released," she said. "He is not guilty of any of the outlandish charges and the organization stands with Mr. Rhodes. I would like for the political parties and politicians to stop dividing the people and using us to promote agendas for their own personal financial gain."
Prior to Rhodes' arrest, she had been serving as the general counsel for the Oath Keepers, according to her website. She also volunteered with Lawyers for Trump in November 2020 and got involved in legal challenges to the election results in Michigan.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Oath Keepers is a "fiercely antigovernment, militaristic group that claims more than 30,000 law enforcement officers, soldiers and military veterans as members," though the center states that number is highly unlikely. The group is "a large but loosely organized collection of individuals, some of whom are associated with militias" and they "explicitly focus on recruiting current and former military, law enforcement, and first-responder personnel," the Department of Justice said.
The group promotes "their own version of vigilante justice by providing voluntary and sometimes illegal security during tense situations in America," according to the SPLC.
Three members of the Oath Keepers group have pleaded guilty to crimes including seditious conspiracy, the highest charge so far levied in the Justice Department's sprawling Jan. 6 investigation. Nine members of the Oath Keepers, including Rhodes, are set to stand trial in the coming months.
