Justice Department moves to toss Oath Keepers, Proud Boys seditious conspiracy convictions

Trump commuted the prison sentences of several Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders last January in a sweeping act of clemency for all the more than 1,500 defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

The Justice Department request would go a step further and erase all the convictions for the extremist group leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who didn't receive pardons last January.

The move to abandon the convictions represented a stunning reversal from the Biden administration, which hailed the guilty verdicts as a crucial victory in its bid to hold accountable those responsible for what prosecutors described as an attack on the heart of American democracy.

It's also part of the Trump administration's continued efforts to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 attack and downplay the violence carried out by the mob of Trump supporters that injured more than 100 police officers.

In court filings, prosecutors asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the convictions so that the government can permanently dismiss the indictments.

"The government's motion to vacate in this case is 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 — motions that the Supreme Court routinely grants," prosecutors wrote in a court filing signed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

Juries in Washington, D.C., convicted the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders of orchestrating violent plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power after Trump's 2020 election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.

The department's dismissal request also includes the convictions of Oath Keepers members Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson and Jessica Watkins and Proud Boys members Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola.

Other extremist group members, including former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, received pardons from Trump on the first day of his second term in the White House.

Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison after he and several lieutenants were convicted in one of the most consequential cases arising from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.

Prosecutors said Rhodes and his followers stockpiled guns for possible use by "quick reaction force" teams at a Virginia hotel but never deployed the weapons.

Nordean's attorney, Nicholas Smith, said they are grateful to the Justice Department for its "wise decision" to seek dismissal of the convictions.

"We don't want a precedent that says that any physical confrontation between protesters and law enforcement means a crime akin to treason, such as seditious conspiracy," Smith said.