WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge has reluctantly dismissed the remaining criminal cases against eight Oath Keepers members convicted over the January 6 attack, erasing convictions that survived President Donald Trump’s earlier clemency order.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta approved the Justice Department’s request Tuesday, concluding that prosecutors possessed the legal authority to abandon the cases despite his strong disagreement with their decision.
The dismissals include convictions against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and others found guilty of seditious conspiracy for plotting to prevent Congress from certifying Trump’s 2020 election defeat. Trump had commuted their sentences when he granted clemency to nearly 1,600 January 6 defendants, freeing them from prison but initially leaving several convictions intact.
Mehta wrote that the final outcome diminished the seriousness of the Capitol attack, discredited the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who secured the convictions and excused conduct that threatened the peaceful transfer of presidential power. Still, he said the court could not prevent the executive branch from dismissing its own prosecutions.
The eight defendants were among the relatively few January 6 participants who had not received complete pardons. Without the department’s intervention, their convictions could have remained on their records.
The Justice Department is also seeking to vacate seditious-conspiracy convictions against former Proud Boys leaders.
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