WASHINGTON – A federal judge has formally brought to a close what remained of the government’s major case against members of the far-right Proud Boys, who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy for plotting to attack the U.S. Capitol in an effort to keep President Donald Trump in office more than five years ago.
The dismissal late Friday had become all but inevitable after Trump, last year, used his pardon authority to wipe away every prosecution stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. With that sweeping act of clemency in place, the judge who oversaw the Proud Boys leaders’ trial said there was no legal reason to leave the convictions standing.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump nominee from the president’s first term, wrote that there is “little mystery” behind the second Trump administration’s decision to walk away from this case, along with the rest of the Jan. 6 prosecutions.
“President Trump’s views about the prosecution of those who attacked the U.S. 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,” Kelly wrote.
Kelly made clear, however, that his order should not be read as approval of the Justice Department’s choice to abandon the prosecution. He described the Capitol attack as “a perilous event” and an assault on the constitutional duty to ensure the peaceful transfer of presidential power.
“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,” Kelly wrote.
The Proud Boys case was one of the most closely watched prosecutions to emerge from Jan. 6. Juries in Washington separately convicted leaders of both the Proud Boys and the antigovernment Oath Keepers of organizing violent schemes intended to keep Trump, a Republican, in power after his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
A separate judge has not yet ruled on the Justice Department’s related request to dismiss the Oath Keepers’ seditious conspiracy convictions.
Friday’s ruling applied to four of five Proud Boys members who were convicted after a jury trial: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. Trump commuted their prison sentences, but they were not covered by the president’s mass pardons.
Former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio was convicted at the same trial but received a pardon from Trump. Kelly had sentenced Tarrio to 22 years, the longest prison term in any Capitol riot case.
