WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to throw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders who were sentenced to prison terms for leading members of the far-right extremist groups in attacking the U.S. Capitol to keep President Donald Trump in office over five years ago.
Trump commuted the prison sentences of several Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders last January in a sweeping act of clemency for all 1,500-plus defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
The request by the Justice Department would go a step further and erase all the convictions for extremist group leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who didn't receive pardons last January.
The move to abandon the convictions represented a stunning reversal from the Biden administration, which hailed the guilty verdicts as a crucial victory in its bid to hold accountable those responsible for what prosecutors described as an attack on the heart of American democracy. It’s part of the Trump administration’s continued efforts to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 attack and downplay the violence carried out by the mob of Trump supporters that left more than 100 police officers injured.
In court filings, prosecutors asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the convictions so that the government can permanently dismiss the indictments.
“The government’s motion to vacate in this case is consistent with its practice of moving the Supreme Court to vacate convictions in cases where the government has decided in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of a criminal case is in the interests of justice — motions that the Supreme Court routinely grants,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing signed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
Juries in Washington, D.C., convicted the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders of orchestrating violent plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power after Trump's 2020 election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.
The department's dismissal request also includes the convictions of Oath Keepers members Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson and Jessica Watkins and Proud Boys members Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola.
Other extremist group members, including former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, received pardons from Trump on the first day of his second term in the White House.
Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison after he and several lieutenants were convicted in one of the most consequential cases arising from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.
Prosecutors said Rhodes and his followers stockpiled guns for possible use by “quick reaction force” teams at a Virginia hotel, but they never deployed the weapons.
Nordean's attorney, Nicholas Smith, said they are grateful to the Justice Department for its “wise decision" in seeking dismissal of the convictions.
“We don't want a precedent that says that any physical confrontation between protesters and law enforcement means a crime akin to treason, such as seditious conspiracy,” Smith said.
Former Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was dragged into the mob and suffered a heart attack after a rioter shocked him with a stun gun, was disappointed but not surprised by the latest milestone in the dismantling of Capitol riot prosecutions.
“I would remind Americans that these were traitors to this country," Fanone said. “They planned, incited and carried out an insurrection."
FILE - The Department of Justice seal is seen in Washington, Nov. 28, 2018. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
FILE - With the White House in the background, President Donald Trump speaks at a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, file)
Iran reversed its decision to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and warned that it would continue to block transit through the strait as long as the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports remained in effect.
The escalating standoff over the critical choke point threatened to deepen the energy crisis roiling the global economy and push the two countries toward renewed conflict, even as mediators expressed confidence that a new deal was within reach.
The strait is closed until the U.S. blockade is lifted, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy said Saturday night. Hours earlier, two gunboats from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard opened fire on a tanker transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. It reported that the tanker and crew were safe, without identifying the vessel or its destination.
Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through the strait and further limits would squeeze the already constrained supply, driving prices higher once again. Meanwhile, a 10-day truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon appeared to be holding.
The fighting in the Middle East conflict, which is approaching the two-month mark, has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, nearly 2,300 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen U.S. service members have also been killed.
Here is the latest:
Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf says the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed as long as the U.S. imposes a naval blockade on Iran.
“It is impossible for others to pass through the Strait of Hormuz while we cannot,” he said in televised comments aired by Iranian semiofficial media late Saturday.
Qalibaf, who is Iran’s chief negotiator with the United States, said that the strait is now under Iran’s control, linking the choke point’s reopening to the U.S. lifting of its blockade.
“If the U.S. does not lift the blockade, traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will definitely be restricted,” he said.
He said that the ceasefire was on verge of collapse when the U.S. attempted to mine-clear the strait.
He said Iran viewed the U.S. attempt as a violation of the ceasefire.
“The situation escalated to the point of conflict but the enemy retreated,” he said.
Israel’s military says another soldier died in combat in southern Lebanon, the second death announced in under 12 hours.
It brought the total number of soldiers killed in Lebanon to 15, and was the second soldier killed in combat since the ceasefire.
The military said that another soldier was badly wounded, along with four moderately wounded and four slightly injured.
The navy of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said that it extended the closure to the corridor it had earlier designated for the safe passage of vessels through the strategic waterway and declared the strait fully closed until the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and ships is lifted.
On Friday, Iran said that vessels could move through the strait in coordination with it and against the payment of a toll.
But in a statement late Saturday carried by Iran’s state media, the navy warned that any violating vessel would be targeted.
Iran considers the U.S. blockade a violation of the ceasefire between the two countries. Two vessels were attacked earlier on Saturday in the Strait of Hormuz and off Oman’s coast, at least one of them by Iranian gunboats.
Excavators remove rubble from destroyed buildings that were hit on Thursday by Israeli airstrikes, as they keep searching for victims in Tyre city, southern Lebanon, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A woman member of the Basij paramilitary, affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard, holds her gun during a state-organized rally in support of the supreme leader marking National Girl's Day in Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
President Donald Trump listens to speeches before signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Saturday, April 18, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Barber Mohammad Mehdi cuts the hair of his client Ayman Al Zein inside his shop, which was damaged in an Israeli airstrike that also damaged Al Zein's shop, in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
The sun rises behind a tanker anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Qeshm Island, Iran, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Asghar Besharati)
