Oath Keeper Trial Explodes After Sexting Texts Revealed Between Rhodes and General Counsel

An attorney is bound by an ethical duty not to get into personal relationships with a client. If despite one’s best attempts, an affair explodes, the lawyer is supposed to withdraw and help get the person or organization a new attorney. Unfortunately, all too often, ethics are set aside.

But there is a very good reason those rules are in place, and one of them is to preserve attorney-client privilege. It is obvious but worth stating that sexting or deeply personal stuff between an attorney and the client is not privileged. It can result in opening near everything as one side argues that there was no true attorney-client relationship.

And that is precisely how it is playing out in the top Oath Keeper, Stewart Rhodes’s trial, along with “general counsel” for the Oath Keepers. From The Daily Beast:

“Speaking of fucking… if you need some come on over,” Rhodes texted general counsel Kellye SoRelle on Jan. 2, 2021, according to a message shown in court. “Maybe I’ll drag you into my hotel room and throw you on the bed then.”

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SoRelle, in a text message shown in court, responded: “See that’s how I know you’re trouble. You’re too good at what you do. Whole bad boy thing. I am a damn moth to a [flame emoji]. I really am replaying my teenage years.”

Whether sent in jest or not, the racy text messages between Rhodes and SoRelle—the attorney has denied they had any kind of romantic relationship—come as prosecutors attempt to challenge any claim of attorney-client privilege between the duo. Last week, District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta ruled that prosecutors would be allowed to show the messages in an attempt to prove there the relationship between Rhodes and SoRelle before the Capitol riots wasn’t strictly professional.

Note the date, January 2nd, 2021. If DOJ is successful in piercing the attorney-client privilege – and they have a good shot – Rhodes could end up fck’d, though not what he envisioned. (Sorry)

HAPPENING NOW: Prosecutors just walked jurors through a series of sexually explicit text messages between Stewart Rhodes and Kellye SoRelle, showing their relationship went a bit, uh, beyond attorney-client. — Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) October 17, 2022

Jan. 2/3 Rhodes: “Speaking of fucking…if you need some come on over.” SoRelle said she couldn’t. Rhodes said he’d “drag you into bed later.” SoRelle “That’s how I know you’re trouble. You’re too good at what you do. Whole bad boy thing. I am a damn moth to a (flame emoji)” — Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) October 17, 2022

This is very much worth watching because if a whole cache of texts is dumped out on the table as evidence, depending on what was said by whom about plans for January 6th, it could bring the entire defense down. Remember, Rhodes’s defense is that he was relying on Trump ordering a state of emergency, an order that never came. If texts show that this “defense” was just a pretext, something they knew before, if they didn’t really expect Trump to order anything, or even if they had talked to Trump indirectly, it could be in those texts.

Interesting and shattering development.

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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, with Nicole Hickman