A United States federal court has dismissed the seditious conspiracy cases against four members of the Proud Boys, the far-right group involved in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
On Friday, Judge Timothy J Kelly, an appointee of President Donald Trump, granted the government’s motion to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be revived in future.
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But Kelly made it clear that the defendants — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — had been “convicted of serious offences”.
He wrote in his seven-page ruling that his decision was ultimately rooted in the separation of government powers, not in the merits of the case.
“As the Court has said many times, the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was a perilous event. It was an attack on people, including police officers, many of whom were injured,” Kelly wrote.
“It was an attack on the Constitution’s mechanism to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next,” he added.
Inside the January 6 riot
Friday’s ruling was yet another milestone in Trump’s efforts to end the prosecution of January 6 rioters.
The attack on the Capitol came shortly after Trump lost his bid for re-election in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden. But in the aftermath of his loss, Trump spread false claims that the election had been rigged.
January 6, 2021, was the day Congress was scheduled to certify the Electoral College votes, confirming Trump’s defeat.
His vice president at the time, Mike Pence, held a ceremonial role overseeing the certification that day. But behind the scenes, Trump reportedly pressured Pence to reject the results of the election.
At midday, Trump held a “Save America” rally in front of the White House, repeating to his supporters that he had won “by a landslide”.
“If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election,” Trump said at one point. At another, he said, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Afterwards, some of his supporters marched to the Capitol and broke into the building, attacking police officers and causing millions of dollars worth of damage. Participants signalled their aim was to stop the vote certification, with some chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”
The attack proved to be deadly. One rioter was shot by police as she climbed through a broken window to enter the House Speaker’s Lobby. An officer died from a stroke the following day after being beaten. Others died by suicide after the attack. Members of Congress had to be led to safety.
Under the Biden administration, the Department of Justice opened criminal cases against nearly 1,600 people involved.
But Trump has long defended the rioters and called their prosecution a “national injustice”.
Trump himself faced two criminal indictments — one at state level, the other federal — over his alleged attempts to subvert the election results, though the charges were dropped upon his re-election in 2024.
Unravelling the prosecutions
Calling the January 6 prosecutions an example of government “weaponisation”, Trump had campaigned during the 2024 race on a promise to pardon the rioters.
He followed through with that pledge on the first day of his second term. On January 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order granting “a full, complete and unconditional pardon” to most of the defendants involved in the Capitol attack.
Trump also commuted the sentences of 14 people, including Nordean, Biggs, Rehl and Pezzola. Under his authority, the Department of Justice also proceeded to seek the dismissal of ongoing January 6 cases.
Judge Kelly cited that series of events in Friday’s ruling, though he appeared to express a measure of scepticism.
“No one should mistake the Court’s granting of the Government’s motion for its agreement with those decisions,” Kelly wrote.
In May 2023, a jury in Washington, DC, found Nordean, Biggs and Rehl guilty of charges including seditious conspiracy, alongside Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.
Pezzola, meanwhile, was found not guilty of seditious conspiracy, but he was convicted of several felonies, including assaulting a police officer. At sentencing, the four men received prison terms ranging from 10 to 18 years, with Pezzola receiving the lightest sentence of the group.
But in weighing the future of the case against the four men, Judge Kelly explained that it was “hard to see” any other course forward other than dismissal.
The court system, Kelly explained, cannot “compel” the executive branch to pursue prosecutions. Trump’s executive order had also required the Department of Justice to seek the case’s dismissal.
“The Court will grant the motion because there are no grounds for it to withhold leave for the Government to dismiss the case with prejudice,” Kelly concluded.
But he ended his decision with a word of warning about protecting the future of American democracy from further attacks.
“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.
