Judge Dismisses Jan. 6 Seditious Conspiracy Case, Rebukes DOJ
A federal judge has dismissed the final seditious conspiracy case stemming from the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, formally closing the book on the most serious prosecutions arising from the riot while sharply criticizing the Justice Department’s decision to abandon the case.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta granted the government’s motion to drop charges against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and seven other members of the far-right extremist group, writing in a 15-page opinion that he had no choice but to yield to the Executive Branch’s authority over charging decisions, as reported by KSAT. But the judge, nominated by President Barack Obama, made clear his profound disagreement with the move.
“The government thus asks to absolve these Defendants of crimes against the United States itself,” Mehta wrote. “In this court’s view, that is not in the public interest.”
The Ruling
Mehta’s decision, issued Tuesday, came after the Department of Justice in April asked the D.C. Circuit Court to vacate the defendants’ convictions, which the appeals court granted on May 21. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro subsequently asked Mehta to drop the charges, writing that dismissal “is in the interests of justice,” according to USA Today.
In his ruling, Mehta wrote that “this is the last of the prosecutions seeking to hold accountable those responsible for the events of Jan. 6. That book is now closed.” He added that the dismissal “diminishes the gravity of that day, denigrates the work of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who secured these convictions, and excuses criminal acts that caused a centuries-long pillar of our democracy — the peaceful transfer of presidential power — to buckle,” as Democracy Now! reported.
Mehta also questioned the DOJ’s reasoning, noting that the government did not argue the charges were legally deficient, that evidence was insufficient, or that prosecutors had engaged in misconduct. He called the department’s lead argument for dismissal — protecting defendants from prosecutorial harassment — a “strange argument,” saying the government was bestowing “unearned grace by wiping their records clean,” according to MS NOW’s legal analysis.
“Remarkably, the government does not maintain that dismissal is in the public interest to rectify a fundamental error or a grave injustice,” the judge wrote.
Background: The Oath Keepers Case
The case began in January 2022 when nine members of the Oath Keepers — including Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, Thomas Caldwell, Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett, David Moerschel, and Edward Vallejo — were indicted on charges including seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy to prevent Members of Congress from discharging their duties, as ProCapitas detailed.
Between two trials, six members were convicted on charges of seditious conspiracy, another six on charges of conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, seven for conspiring to prevent members of Congress from discharging their duties, and all nine on charges of obstruction of an official proceeding. Sentences ranged from 18 years for Rhodes to as little as three years.
Rhodes, who did not enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, was released from prison in January 2025 after President Donald Trump commuted his 18-year sentence. Trump’s sweeping first-day pardons granted “full, complete and unconditional” pardons to most Jan. 6 defendants, but Rhodes and other defendants in the seditious conspiracy cases only had their sentences commuted, leaving their convictions intact.
The DOJ’s Reversal
The Department of Justice’s April 2026 motion to vacate the convictions represented a stunning reversal from the Biden administration, which had hailed the guilty verdicts in one of the most serious cases stemming from the Capitol attack. The request asked the appeals court to dismiss the charges with prejudice, preventing the government from bringing the cases again, as MS NOW reported.
Prosecutors wrote that the motion was “consistent with its practice of moving the Supreme Court to vacate convictions in cases where the government has decided in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of a criminal case is in the interests of justice,” according to The Yeshiva World.
Trump has argued that Jan. 6 defendants were treated unfairly by the justice system, saying the pardons were intended to end “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people” and begin “a process of national reconciliation.”
The Proud Boys Precedent
The Oath Keepers dismissal follows a similar ruling in the related Proud Boys case. On July 11, Judge Timothy Kelly dismissed the remnants of the government’s landmark case against four Proud Boys members convicted of seditious conspiracy, applying to Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola, as KSAT reported.
Kelly, whom Trump nominated during his first term, wrote that “President Trump’s views about the prosecution of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6 — whether those views are based on fact or fiction — are well known, as is his intention to extend clemency to them.” He stressed that his order should not be mistaken as an endorsement of the DOJ’s decision.
Reactions and Implications
James Lee Bright, an attorney who represented Rhodes at trial, said he was “disappointed in the tenor” of Mehta’s order, adding that it was “not necessary to inject his personal opinions in such a fashion.” Bright said Rhodes “should never have been charged,” as OAN reported.
More than 1,200 people across the United States were convicted of Jan. 6 crimes, including roughly 200 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement. Trump also ordered the attorney general to seek the dismissal of roughly 450 cases that were pending before judges stemming from what was described as the largest investigation in Justice Department history. RedState noted that Mehta’s opinion questioned nearly every justification advanced by the DOJ.
Legal analysts have noted that Mehta’s opinion documents what he saw as the erasure of accountability for Jan. 6 crimes, with the judge recounting that Rhodes “had publicly declared what his members had been discussing in private meetings and through encrypted communications: their willingness to use force and violence to thwart the certification of President-elect [Joe] Biden’s electoral victory.”
What’s Next
With the dismissal now finalized, Rhodes and the remaining Oath Keepers defendants no longer face ongoing federal criminal proceedings related to the Capitol attack. The conclusion of the case formally closes the final chapter of the seditious conspiracy prosecutions that were among the most consequential legal efforts stemming from Jan. 6.
Mehta praised the jurors who convicted the defendants, saying they “performed an extraordinary service to the nation” and that “contrary to what some believe, the jurors did not simply rubber stamp the government’s case.” He also commended law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol that day, noting that “due to the extraordinary bravery and courage of law enforcement, Congress was able to reconvene later that night and certify President-elect Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.”
While the criminal proceedings have ended, the political and legal debate surrounding Jan. 6 continues. Trump himself faces a series of civil lawsuits related to his incitement of the attack, and the broader national conversation about accountability for the events of that day remains far from settled.