JUDGE DISMISSES REMNANTS OF PROUD BOYS SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY CASE

A federal judge has dismissed the remaining portions of the government's case against Proud Boys members convicted after the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, following the Justice Department's decision to abandon the prosecution. The Associated Press reported that U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued the dismissal late Friday. The case had been one of the most significant prosecutions brought after the Capitol riot, with several Proud Boys leaders convicted in connection with efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.

Friday's ruling applied to four of the five Proud Boys defendants convicted after the trial: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. Nordean, Biggs and Rehl were convicted of seditious conspiracy. Pezzola was convicted of other serious January 6-related offenses but was acquitted of seditious conspiracy. President Trump had commuted their prison sentences, but they were not covered by the broader mass pardons, leaving remnants of the case still technically alive. Former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted at the same trial and received the longest prison sentence in any Capitol riot case, received a full pardon from Trump.

The dismissal became effectively inevitable after the Justice Department chose to abandon the remaining case. The Associated Press reported that Trump's clemency actions last year erased or undercut every case the government prosecuted over the Capitol riot. The Justice Department's decision meant the judge saw no basis to preserve the remaining convictions once the executive branch no longer intended to maintain the prosecution. The ruling is procedural, but it closes another major piece of the federal government's January 6 criminal case record.

Judge Kelly stressed that his order should not be mistaken for an endorsement of the Justice Department's decision to abandon the case. The Associated Press reported that Kelly described the Capitol riot as "a perilous event" and an assault on the constitutional imperative for a peaceful transfer of power between presidents. That characterization belongs to the judge. The order therefore did two things at once: it dismissed the remaining case as a legal consequence of the government's position and presidential clemency, while rejecting any suggestion that the court approved of the underlying policy choice.

The Proud Boys case had carried special weight because seditious conspiracy is one of the most serious charges used in the January 6 prosecutions. Juries in Washington separately convicted leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers in cases that prosecutors said involved organized efforts to use force to prevent the lawful transfer of presidential power. The Proud Boys trial produced seditious conspiracy convictions against Tarrio, Nordean, Biggs and Rehl, while Pezzola was convicted of other felony offenses connected to the attack.

Trump's clemency actions changed the legal landscape. His full pardon of Tarrio and commutations for Nordean, Biggs, Rehl and Pezzola reduced or removed the practical consequences of the convictions. The distinction between a pardon and a commutation mattered in this case. A commutation reduces or ends a sentence but does not necessarily erase the conviction, while a pardon goes further by forgiving the offense. Because the four defendants covered by Friday's ruling had received commutations rather than full pardons, pieces of their cases remained unresolved until the Justice Department moved away from them and the court dismissed the remnants.

The ruling also leaves attention on related January 6 cases. The Associated Press reported that a different judge had not yet ruled on a Justice Department request to throw out Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy convictions. That parallel case means the legal afterlife of the January 6 prosecutions is not fully over, even as the Proud Boys case has been dismissed.

The next developments to watch are whether the Justice Department continues seeking dismissal of remaining January 6 cases, how courts handle the related Oath Keepers convictions, and whether any civil litigation connected to the prosecutions moves forward. For now, the public record is that Judge Kelly dismissed the remaining Proud Boys case while making clear that the order should not be read as approval of the Justice Department's decision to walk away from it.

Fact-check date: 12 July 2026
Article type: News
Sources: Associated Press; PBS NewsHour; ABC News; The Washington Post; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette