Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, from left, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 21, 2025.J. Scott Applewhite/AP
In 2023, after Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress, the Justice Department noted the stiff sentence reflected the court’s conclusion that Rhodes’ “conduct was terrorism.”
“The Oath Keepers plotted for months to violently disrupt the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next,” then–Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “The Justice Department will continue to do everything in our power to hold accountable those criminally responsible for the January 6th attack on our democracy.”
Not anymore. In court filings Tuesday, DOJ lawyers asked DC Circuit Court judges to vacate the seditious conspiracy and other convictions of 12 members of the Proud Boys groups and Oath Keepers, including Rhodes.
The defendants affected were all convicted over their effort to prevent the peaceful of transfer of power following Donald Trump’s election defeat in 2020. After his win in 2024, while pardoning around 1,600 people convicted of taking part in the January 6 riot, Trump treated the convicted seditionists differently, merely commuting their prison sentences—which meant that while free, they remained convicted felons. Those defendants continued to appeal their original convictions.
The new DOJ move would end their designation as seditionists and undo the symbolically important legal determination that the attack on Congress was part of an effort to overthrow the lawful government of the United States.
The DOJ filings, signed by District of Columbia US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, did not explain the department’s reasoning beyond a line stating: “The government has decided in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of a criminal case is in the interests of justice.”
The filing comes a few weeks after Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, reportedly in part out of frustration that the Justice Department had failed to secure criminal convictions of political foes whom the president had demanded face prosecution on dubious charges.
Trump has fared better pushing DOJ to advance his claims about January 6, which he has called a “day of love,” while continuing to insist that the false claims that fueled the attack—his claim that he won the 2020 election—were accurate.
Now, the lies that led to the first-ever attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power in the United States are effectively government policy. The Justice Department, under acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, is moving further from its long-standing independence—and attempting to give the president the legal system he wants.
