A federal judge on Friday dismissed the seditious conspiracy case against the Proud Boys, granting the Trump administration’s request to unravel one of the most significant criminal prosecutions from the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
US District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, made clear he was acting under compulsion, not conviction. “I lack the authority to compel the Executive to pursue a prosecution, full stop,” he wrote.
The case involved four Proud Boys members: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola. Nordean, Biggs, and Rehl were convicted in 2023 of seditious conspiracy, among the most serious charges to emerge from the January 6 investigation. Pezzola was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted on other charges.
Trump, on his first day back in office, signed an executive order commuting their sentences and pardoning more than 1,000 other January 6 defendants. In April, Attorney General Todd Blanche’s Justice Department moved to vacate the Proud Boys convictions entirely.
Kelly’s order was laced with reluctance. “President Trump’s views about the prosecution of those who attacked the US 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 through the Executive Order,” Kelly wrote.
He noted that the administration sought to treat this case “the same way it has all January 6 cases, without regard for the seriousness of the conduct at issue.”
The dismissal erases convictions that were considered landmark victories for the Biden-era Justice Department. The Proud Boys were at the center of the attack on January 6. Members of the far-right group were among the first to breach the Capitol, and their leaders were found to have conspired to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
“No one should mistake the Court’s granting of the Government’s motion for its agreement with those decisions,” Kelly wrote.
He closed with a warning: “Moving forward, if this Nation’s experiment in self-government is to last another 250 years, the American people, no matter their partisan preferences, will have to act together to preserve, protect and defend that miracle through our constitutional framework.”
The case is the latest instance of the Trump administration systematically dismantling the legal consequences of January 6. Pardons, sentence commutations, and now dismissal of convictions have effectively nullified the largest federal investigation in US history. The message to those who attacked the Capitol is unambiguous: there will be no accountability.