Judge throws out 8 Oath Keepers Jan. 6 cases after DOJ move
What's new: The ruling wipes out Stewart Rhodes' seditious conspiracy conviction after Trump had already freed nearly all Jan. 6 defendants.
A federal judge in Washington dismissed the remaining Jan. 6 criminal cases against eight Oath Keepers defendants on Aug. 4, wiping out convictions that had included seditious conspiracy against founder Stewart Rhodes. US District Judge Amit Mehta granted the Justice Department's request even as he wrote that he strongly disagreed with the decision. The defendants had already been released after President Donald Trump pardoned nearly all 1,600 people charged in the 2021 Capitol attack and commuted the sentences of others. The eight were among the few not fully pardoned, so their convictions would have remained in place without the department's intervention. Mehta also noted the DOJ had moved to vacate Proud Boys seditious conspiracy convictions.