{"id":982644,"date":"2026-08-05T16:20:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/982644\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T16:20:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:20:26","slug":"judge-dismisses-jan-6-sedition-conspiracy-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/982644\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge dismisses Jan. 6 sedition conspiracy case"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge decried efforts to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol<\/a> as he reluctantly dismissed the seditious conspiracy case against members of the far-right Oath Keepers extremist group at the Trump administration\u2019s request<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The move Tuesday closes the book on the Jan. 6 cases that were wiped out with Republican President Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping pardons and commutations last year<\/a>, freeing from prison people convicted of violent of assaults on police and other crimes. <\/p>\n

The Department of Justice in April acted to vacate the convictions of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes<\/a> and others in the seditious conspiracy case<\/a> who had their sentences commuted but did not receive pardons. It was a stunning reversal from the Democratic Biden administration, which hailed the guilty verdicts in one of the most serious cases stemming from the Capitol attack.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who oversaw the Oath Keepers\u2019 trials, criticized the department\u2019s move, writing in his ruling that the government \u201casks to absolve these Defendants of crimes against the United States itself.\u201d But Mehta wrote that he had no choice but to grant the administration\u2019s request. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the last of the prosecutions seeking to hold accountable those responsible for the events of Jan. 6. That book is now closed,\u201d wrote Mehta, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s epilogue 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 \u2014 the peaceful transfer of presidential power \u2014 to buckle. The court cannot write a different ending,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n

Juries in the nation\u2019s capital convicted Oath Keepers leaders and members of another group, the Proud Boys, of orchestrating violent plots<\/a> to stop the peaceful transfer of power after Trump\u2019s 2020 election loss to Biden. Rhodes was released from prison in January 2025<\/a> after Trump commuted the 18-year sentence he received<\/a> in the case. <\/p>\n

Rhodes, who did not enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, has denied any wrongdoing and described himself at his 2023 sentencing as a \u201cpolitical prisoner.\u201d James Lee Bright, an attorney who represented Rhodes at trial, wrote in a text message that he was \u201cdisappointed in the tenor\u201d of Mehta\u2019s opinion, adding that it was \u201cnot necessary to inject his personal opinions in such a fashion.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump has argued that the Jan. 6 defendants were treated unfairly by the justice system, saying the pardons were intended to end \u201ca grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people\u201d and begin \u201ca process of national reconciliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Most of the Jan. 6 defendants were granted \u201cfull, complete and unconditional\u201d pardons, while Rhodes and other defendants in the seditious conspiracy cases only had their sentences commuted. Trump also ordered the attorney general to seek the dismissal of roughly 450 cases that were pending before judges stemming from the largest investigation in Justice Department history<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge decried efforts to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":982645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[27603,394397,10762,11744,133989,12785,84,69,57,394398,90048,2936,362,50,130635,80,394396,94,67,132,68,93],"class_list":["post-982644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","category-us","tag-2021-united-states-capitol-riot","tag-amit-mehta","tag-assault","tag-barack-obama","tag-capitol-siege","tag-dc-wire","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-general-news","tag-james-lee","tag-law-and-order","tag-law-enforcement","tag-legal-proceedings","tag-news","tag-pardons-and-commutations","tag-politics","tag-stewart-rhodes","tag-u-s-department-of-justice","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-washington-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117043817939513911","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=982644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/982645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=982644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=982644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=982644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}