Judge grants Trump admin’s request to dismiss January 6 case against Proud Boys
Federal Court Halts Prosecution of Proud Boys in January 6 Seditious Conspiracy Matter
Judge Kelly Accepts Executive Branch Decision to Withdraw Charges
Judge grants Trump admin s request – A federal magistrate in Washington, DC, issued a ruling on Friday that effectively terminates the seditious conspiracy proceedings targeting multiple members of the Proud Boys organization. The decision came after the Department of Justice, operating under the Trump administration, formally requested the dismissal. This development represents a significant reversal of one of the Biden era’s most prominent legal achievements concerning those authorities believed to have motivated the assault on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
US District Judge Timothy Kelly, who received his judicial appointment from President Trump, reluctantly consented to the withdrawal of charges against the four defendants. In his written order, Kelly emphasized that he “lacks the authority to compel the Executive to pursue a prosecution, full stop.” The judge acknowledged the political context surrounding the case, noting that “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 through the Executive Order.” Kelly referenced the presidential directive signed during Trump’s initial day returning to office, which commuted the sentences of the convicted individuals.
While Trump’s executive directive granted pardons to more than one thousand individuals convicted in connection with the Capitol assault, it specifically preserved the convictions of the four Proud Boys associates: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola. The Justice Department, led by Todd Blanche, filed its motion to vacate these convictions in April. The withdrawal of charges removes some of the most substantial convictions from what stands as one of the most extensive federal investigations in American history.
“The decisions to issue the Executive Order and to abandon this prosecution—even after the Government secured convictions for serious crimes relating to the attack on the Capitol on January 6—are solely the Executive’s,” Kelly continued. “No one should mistake the Court’s granting of the Government’s motion for its agreement with those decisions.”
Nordean, Biggs, and Rehl received guilty verdicts in 2023 on charges of seditious conspiracy alongside various additional offenses. Pezzola, meanwhile, was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but found guilty on other January 6-related charges. Kelly observed that the Trump administration sought to “treat this case essentially the same way it has all January 6 cases, without regard for the seriousness of the conduct at issue or even whether the case was initiated after President Biden took office or, like this one, while President Trump was still in power.”
Defendants and Supporters Celebrate the Ruling
Rehl, one of the convicted members, expressed his relief through a message on X, declaring, “Finally, it’s all over! January 6th can now be a thing of the past for me!” Enrique Tarrio, the former organization leader who also received a presidential pardon, quickly shared his own celebration on the platform Friday evening: “Justice is served! Proud Boys don’t lose. We win. This is our victory.”
President Trump has consistently criticized the January 6 prosecutions as unfair treatment of his supporters, at times describing incarcerated individuals as “hostages.” He has frequently characterized January 6, 2021, as “a day of love and peace” while asserting that his adherents presented “zero threat” to the nation. These assertions stand in contrast to numerous video recordings showing Trump supporters striking police officers with flagpoles, batons, wooden clubs, and baseball bats; utilizing stun guns and chemical sprays; and participating in direct physical confrontations with law enforcement personnel.
Describing the insurrection as “a perilous event,” the judge noted it was “an attack on people, including police officers, many of whom were injured. It was an attack on a coordinate branch of government—Congress—that the Founders saw fit to give a place of primacy in Article I of the Constitution. And it was an attack on the Constitution’s mechanism to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next, what President Reagan called ‘nothing less than a miracle.'”
Concluding his order with a measured caution, Kelly stated, “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 ruling underscores the separation between judicial approval of procedural decisions and substantive endorsement of the Executive’s policy choices regarding the January 6 prosecutions.
