Judge Tosses Last Proud Boys Seditious Conspiracy Convictions, Rebuking Trump Even as He Complies

A federal judge on Friday threw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of four Proud Boys who helped lead the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, clearing away some of the last remaining cases from the assault after the Justice Department moved to abandon them in the wake of President Donald Trump's sweeping clemency. But the judge made unmistakably clear that he was acting under legal constraint, not agreement.

U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly dismissed the case with prejudice — meaning it can never be refiled — against Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola, four men a jury had convicted after one of the most significant trials to emerge from the Capitol riot. Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys national chairman convicted alongside them at the same trial, had already received a full pardon from Trump.

In a pointed order, Kelly wrote that "no one should mistake the Court's granting of the Government's motion for its agreement" with the decision to walk away from the prosecution. He noted there was "little mystery" about why the government was moving to dismiss, observing that Trump's views on the January 6 cases — and his intention to extend clemency to those who stormed the Capitol — were well known. The judge went further, describing the president's characterization of the attack as based on "fiction."

The four men were among the most serious offenders from that day. After taking office in January, Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 people convicted for their conduct on January 6, but he treated a small group differently, commuting the sentences of 14 defendants to time served while leaving their convictions intact. Biggs, Nordean, Pezzola and Rehl were in that group — their prison terms cut short but their felony records preserved, until Friday's ruling erased the convictions entirely.

The Justice Department's motion to dismiss marked the culmination of a broader effort by the administration to unwind the prosecutions that followed the Capitol siege, one of the largest investigations in the department's history. Legal scholars have warned that dismantling those cases, secured through years of work by career prosecutors and validated by juries, risks rewriting the official record of an assault that left police officers injured and interrupted the peaceful transfer of power.

Rehl, a former leader of the Philadelphia chapter, and the other defendants had long sought to have their cases undone, and Friday's order delivered that outcome. Yet the judge's language ensured the moment would not read as vindication. By granting the government's request while condemning the reasoning behind it, Kelly underscored the unusual position in which the courts have been placed — compelled to close cases they once presided over, even as they refuse to endorse the rationale for doing so.