A federal judge appointed by Donald Trump during his first administration reluctantly dismantled seditious conspiracy convictions against three Proud Boys leaders on Friday, even as he openly acknowledged the dismissal served political rather than legal purposes.
Judge Timothy Kelly of the US District Court granted the Department of Justice's motion to overturn the convictions of Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Zachary Rehl, who had been found guilty by jury of multiple serious offenses during the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack. A fourth member, Dominic Pezzola, had also been convicted of assaulting a police officer and destroying a Capitol window that became an iconic image of the riot.
In a seven-page memorandum, Kelly made clear he understood exactly what was happening. He noted that President Trump had commuted the sentences of these men in 2025 upon returning to office as part of a sweeping clemency order affecting roughly 1,500 people charged or convicted in connection with the Capitol attack. Though their convictions remained standing at that point, Trump's stated intentions regarding January 6 prosecutions were unmistakable.
"There is little mystery about why the Government is moving to dismiss this case, or whether dismissal is in fact what the Executive seeks," Kelly wrote. He observed that Trump's views about prosecuting Capitol attackers, "whether those views are based on fact or fiction," were well known, as was his intention to grant them clemency.
Despite this candid assessment, Kelly found himself bound by an appeals court ruling issued in May that had vacated the convictions. Denying the dismissal motion would have been impractical given that determination, he reasoned.
Yet Kelly used his opinion to lodge a stark objection to what was occurring. He emphasized that the January 6 attack represented an assault on law enforcement officers, many injured in the violence, as well as a direct attack on Congress itself. He invoked the Founders' placement of the legislative branch in Article I of the Constitution as evidence of its foundational importance and framed the attack as an assault on the constitutional mechanism enabling peaceful transfers of power.
"As the Court has said many times, the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was a perilous event," Kelly wrote. He concluded his opinion with an appeal to national durability, warning that if American self-government was to endure another 250 years, citizens across partisan lines would need to act together to preserve the constitutional framework that facilitates orderly transitions between administrations.
Nordean, Biggs, and Rehl had all received lengthy prison sentences in 2023 before Trump's commutation shortened their time behind bars. The case was initiated in the days following the attack while Trump was still in his first term.
Author James Rodriguez: "A judge essentially saying 'I have to do this, but it's wrong' captures exactly how the legal and political collide when executive clemency power meets controversial prosecutions."
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