U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly on Friday permanently closed one of the most high-profile criminal cases to emerge from the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, dismissing with prejudice the seditious conspiracy convictions of four Proud Boys members. The Trump-nominated judge made clear he had no real choice in the matter, but he was not happy about it.
Kelly granted the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the cases against Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola, all of whom had received sentences ranging from 10 to 18 years, with some carrying terrorism sentencing enhancements. The "with prejudice" designation means no future administration can revive the charges against any of the four men.
The ruling is the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration to unwind Biden-era January 6 prosecutions. But what makes Kelly's decision stand out is the unusual tension between his legal conclusion and his personal view of the case. He went out of his way to condemn the Capitol breach while insisting the Constitution tied his hands.
Kelly, whom Trump nominated to the federal bench during his first term, pointed to Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the separation of powers as the twin pillars forcing his hand. Rule 48(a) governs how the government may dismiss criminal cases and gives prosecutors broad discretion to drop charges, with leave of the court. In practice, judges rarely refuse.
Fox News reported that Kelly framed the dismissal as constitutionally compelled, not optional. As Newsmax detailed, the judge stressed that his role under the constitutional framework left little room for a different outcome.
"The Constitution and Rule 48(a) require it."
That single sentence from Kelly's order captured the core of his reasoning. The executive branch controls prosecutorial discretion. Once the DOJ moved to dismiss, the judiciary's ability to second-guess that decision was, in Kelly's view, essentially nonexistent.
But Kelly refused to let the ruling speak for itself without a caveat. He drew a sharp line between what the law required him to do and what he thought of the underlying facts.
"No one should mistake the Court's granting of the Government's motion for its agreement with those decisions."
The dismissal did not arrive in a vacuum. Trump had already commuted the prison sentences of Nordean, Biggs, Rehl, and Pezzola as part of a sweeping clemency order issued on January 20, 2025, his first day back in office. That order covered more than 1,500 January 6 defendants, commuting sentences and issuing pardons across the board.
Former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, who had received a 22-year sentence, the longest of any Capitol riot defendant, got a full pardon. His case was not part of Kelly's ruling because it had already been resolved through the pardon.
But commutations only cut short prison time. They leave the convictions on the books. The DOJ's motion to dismiss with prejudice went further, seeking to wipe the criminal records clean. AP News reported that Kelly acknowledged the dismissal was a "foregone conclusion" given the executive actions already taken.
Kelly cited Trump's well-known stance on the January 6 prosecutions directly in his order, a rare move for a federal judge.
"President Trump's views about the prosecution of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, whether those views are based on fact or fiction, are well known, as is his intention to extend clemency to them."
That phrasing, "whether those views are based on fact or fiction," is striking. Kelly did not endorse the president's characterization of the cases. He simply noted it as context for why the DOJ moved to dismiss.
Kelly's ruling addresses only the Proud Boys case before him. A parallel effort by the Justice Department targets the seditious conspiracy convictions of Oath Keepers leaders, including Stewart Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, and Jessica Watkins. That request sits before a different judge, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who has not yet ruled.
The DOJ's push extends beyond trial-court dismissals. The New York Post reported that prosecutors asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to vacate convictions and permanently dismiss indictments against both Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders. A court filing signed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro framed the request in standard prosecutorial language.
"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."
The DOJ described the dismissed prosecutions as "years-long, Biden-era weaponized prosecutions," Breitbart reported, language that mirrors the Trump administration's broader framing of the January 6 cases as politically motivated.
This pattern of the current DOJ seeking to unwind its predecessor's cases is not limited to January 6. The department recently asked a judge to drop bribery and fraud charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, raising similar questions about the scope of prosecutorial discretion under the new administration.
The legal distinction matters. A dismissal "without prejudice" would have left the door open for a future administration to refile charges. Kelly's order slams that door shut permanently.
Just The News noted that this goes well beyond what the earlier commutations achieved. Commutations ended the defendants' prison time but preserved their status as convicted felons. The dismissal with prejudice erases the convictions themselves, restoring the defendants' legal standing as if the cases had never been brought.
For Nordean, Biggs, Rehl, and Pezzola, the practical effects are significant. Felony convictions carry collateral consequences that extend far beyond prison: restrictions on voting rights, firearm ownership, employment, and professional licensing. Wiping the convictions removes those barriers.
The Trump administration has framed this kind of relief as part of a broader effort to address what it considers weaponized prosecutions from the prior administration. Whether one views these dismissals as justice corrected or accountability abandoned depends largely on where one stands politically.
Perhaps the most notable passage in Kelly's order had nothing to do with procedural rules or prosecutorial discretion. It was a plea directed at the country itself.
"Moving forward, if this Nation's experiment in self-government is to last another 250 years, the American people, no matter their partisan preferences, will have to act together to preserve, protect and defend that miracle through our constitutional framework."
Kelly called the Capitol breach a "perilous event." He did not minimize what happened on January 6. He simply concluded that the judiciary's role in the constitutional structure did not give him the authority to override the executive branch's decision to walk away from the prosecution.
That tension, a judge who plainly disapproves of the outcome he is required to deliver, gives the ruling an unusual character. Kelly is not a resistance judge. He is not grandstanding. He followed the law as he understood it and said so plainly.
Judge Mehta's pending decision on the Oath Keepers cases will be the next major test. The DOJ has made the same request there: vacate the convictions, dismiss with prejudice, close the book. Mehta, an Obama appointee, may approach the separation-of-powers question differently than Kelly did, or he may reach the same conclusion through a different analytical path.
Investigators and legal observers have not publicly indicated whether Mehta has signaled a timeline for his ruling. The DOJ's broader posture on law enforcement and legal strategy continues to evolve across multiple fronts, from suing states over immigration enforcement restrictions to pledging aggressive enforcement of Supreme Court rulings on redistricting.
If Mehta grants the motion, every major seditious conspiracy conviction from January 6 will have been erased. If he denies it, the case will almost certainly head to the D.C. Circuit, setting up a direct appellate fight over the limits of prosecutorial discretion.
The Proud Boys seditious conspiracy case once stood as the Biden Justice Department's signature achievement in the January 6 prosecutions. Convictions secured after lengthy trials. Sentences measured in decades. Terrorism enhancements applied. The full weight of the federal criminal justice system brought to bear.
All of it is now gone. Not overturned on appeal. Not reduced on the merits. Dismissed at the request of the same government that brought the charges, under a different president with a different view of what happened that day.
Judge Kelly followed the constitutional framework he swore to uphold. He granted the motion. He made clear he did not agree with it. And he warned the country that self-government requires more than legal procedure. It requires the people themselves to hold the line.
When a federal judge has to tell the public that the republic's survival depends on them, not on the courts, the stakes have moved well beyond any single case file.
