A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday dismissed all remaining charges against Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and eight co-defendants in the January 6 Capitol case.
The Justice Department asked the court to throw out the indictment after President Trump’s clemency actions. Most January 6 defendants received full pardons; these nine had their sentences cut to time already served.
Judge Amit Mehta granted the request, calling the government’s reasons substantial enough under the rules that give prosecutors wide discretion to drop cases. He noted the defendants had already faced two full trials, and no further punishment was possible after the commutations.
Mehta wrote that this was the last of the major January 6 prosecutions and that dismissing the charges “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, the peaceful transfer of presidential power, to buckle.”
Still, he said the court could not “write a different ending.”
