'Oath Keepers' member pleads guilty to Jan 6-linked charges

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A member of the Oath Keepers groups pleaded guilty Thursday to charges linked to the storming of the US capitol, the Justice Department said, which happened at the hands of rioters aiming to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential elections in favor of former President Donald Trump after he lost to incumbent President Joe Biden.

"Brian Ulrich, 44, of Guyton, Georgia pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol breach," the DoJ said in a press release.

Ulrich also pleaded guilty to the charge of obstruction of an official proceeding and agreed to cooperate with the government’s ongoing investigation as part of a plea deal, the release added.

In his guilty guilty plea, Ulrich admitted that he had conspired with other members of the Oath Keepers organization to use force to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election results, the press release said.

Joshua James, a 34-year-old from Alabama, was the first member of the organization to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction charges in March 2022. Ulrich became the second member of the group today to plead guilty to those charges.

Ulrich's charges could land him 20 years in prison, not to mention financial penalties upon sentencing, for which the date has not been set, according to the press release.

Some 800 individuals have been detained across the United States for crimes connected to the Capitol riots, the press release revealed, 250 of which had been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, and investigations are still ongoing on the matter.

US law enforcement has arrested Stewart Rhodes, leader and founder of the right-wing Oath Keepers group, in light of a probe into the riots.

Rhodes, along with 11 other defendants, was charged with seditious conspiracy and other crimes related to the January 6 capitol riot, the Justice Department said Thursday.

According to the indictment, the Oath Keepers are a loosely organized collection of individuals, some of whom have associations with militias and other armed groups, the release said.

One day before the anniversary of the attacks on the US capitol, the White House announced that President Joe Biden would call out Donald Trump's "singular responsibility" behind the riots.

A US judge had ruled that any White House records that could implicate former President Donald Trump in the January 6 attack on the Capitol be released to the Congressional Committee investigating the insurrection.

An FBI probe found that far-right leaders had met in a garage in downtown Washington a day before the Capitol riot. FBI witnesses said the meeting was between the then-leader of the far-right Proud Boys, now-arrested Oath Keepers militia leader, and other far-right figures.

The accounts mean that the heads of America's most notorious far-right Trump-supporting groups met each other just a day before the insurrection; however, three attendees told Reuters they did not discuss matters related to January 6.