Judge Reluctantly Drops Oath Keepers Case: 'Unearned Grace'

A federal judge says he's bound by the law, but he made clear he doesn't like where it led him. On Tuesday, US District Judge Amit Mehta reluctantly approved the Justice Department's request to erase seditious conspiracy convictions for eight Oath Keepers, including founder Stewart Rhodes, over their actions on Jan. 6, reports the New York Times. Calling the move "unearned grace" that "wip[es] their records clean," Mehta said he wished for "a different ending" and argued that the decision "diminishes the gravity" of the attack and "excuses criminal acts" that shook the peaceful transfer of power.

The dismissals follow a similar ruling last month in a Proud Boys case and effectively close out what is said to be the Justice Department's largest-ever criminal inquiry. Prosecutors cited the "interest of justice" in seeking to drop the charges after President Trump commuted sentences and issued broad clemency to Jan. 6 defendants on his return to office, though they didn't claim legal errors or weak evidence in the Oath Keepers' trials. Mehta spent pages recounting the group's planning, weapons cache, and coordinated Capitol breach, writing that if prosecutors believe the public interest is served by relinquishing the convictions, "this court must yield."

"The government is ordinarily of the view that accountability, not mere publicity, is what is in the public interest," Mehta, an Obama appointee, said in response to the DOJ's argument that the intense media coverage of the Oath Keepers' trial should ease people's minds about the event being scrubbed from history, per Politico. An attorney for Rhodes posted on X that his client had been convicted of a "thought crime" and that he "should never have been charged," per the Washington Post. "This chapter is now over," wrote James Lee Bright. "Congrats to the remaining defendants."