DOJ moves to vacate seditious-conspiracy convictions of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leaders

On April 14, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to vacate the seditious-conspiracy convictions of twelve defendants tied to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and to permanently dismiss their indictments. The defendants are Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and associates Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, Roberto Minuta, Edward Vallejo, Joseph Hackett, and David Moerschel, along with Proud Boys associates Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola. Juries in Washington, D.C. had convicted these men and women of orchestrating violent plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election.

The motion marks an escalation beyond the clemency these defendants already received. In January 2025, President Trump commuted their prison sentences as part of a sweeping grant of relief to more than 1,500 January 6 defendants. Commutation ended their incarceration but left the underlying convictions intact. The vacatur motion seeks to erase the convictions themselves — a step clemency does not take — and to dismiss the indictments so the cases cannot be revived. As of the filing, the convictions remained on appeal and the motion was pending before the D.C. Circuit.

The archival act recorded here is the Justice Department's filing, which has occurred, independent of whether the court ultimately grants it. The conduct maps to selective prosecution — the government abandoning cases it won at trial based on the defendants' political alignment rather than the law and evidence — and to weaponizing the Justice Department, deploying prosecutorial power to shield allies the President has publicly described as "hostages." Ranking Member Jamie Raskin of the House Judiciary Committee publicly challenged the motion as an effort to vacate duly obtained felony convictions.