Oath Keepers say charges are flawed

Guy Lucas, The High Point Enterprise, N.C.
·2 min read

Jul. 7—TRIAD — A Thomasville woman facing charges in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol is joining several co-defendants in arguing that the entire indictment against them is fatally flawed and should be thrown out.

A federal judge granted permission Tuesday for Laura Lee Steele, 52, and other members of the Oath Keepers militia group who are charged to join the sweeping motion to dismiss filed in mid-June by the attorney for Thomas E. Caldwell, one of the most prominent members of the Oath Keepers to have been charged so far.

The indictment says that members of the group planned ahead for an assault on the Capitol that day to try to block Congress from certifying the Electoral College presidential election results.

Caldwell's motion does not argue that Caldwell or others charged did nothing wrong, but it contends that prosecutors have botched their case, overreached the law and sought to single out people who hold "unpopular ideas or beliefs for outsized punishments."

"There is no doubt that on January 6th, 2021 multiple individuals committed crimes at the Capitol," the motion said. "In short, the Government was presented with the legal equivalent of an uncontested layup ... (but instead) has opted to go for the crowd-pleasing slam-dunk in the Indictment, charging multiple defendants ... under statutes of dubious applicability."

The motion leans on arguments that the legal meaning of certain words in the laws under which the defendants were charged cannot apply to what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6. For instance, the term "official proceeding" cannot refer to Congress certifying the Electoral College vote because that is not a judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding, it argues.

Similarly, a charge related to entering "a restricted building or grounds" is based on a law regarding a place where someone protected by the Secret Service is, which the motion argues cannot apply to the entire Capitol grounds.

"Trespassing on certain portions of the grounds of the Capitol is always a crime," it said, but the law cited in the indictment doesn't apply unless the specific place a defendant entered had been designated by the Secret Service as a restricted zone.

Judge Amit P. Mehta has set a hearing for Sept. 8 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to consider the dismissal motion.

Mehta also set preliminary trial dates Tuesday, saying that the Oath Keepers who remain in federal custody would go on trial first on Jan. 31, and some others who are not still in custody may be added to that trial group. The others would go on trial April 4.

Steele, a former High Point Police Department officer who is married to retired High Point Assistant Chief Ken Steele, was released to at-home detention in late March.

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