On Tuesday evening, the Department of Justice — the same institution entrusted with prosecuting federal crimes — filed motions asking a federal appeals court to do something that should make your molars crack: permanently wipe the criminal records of twelve men convicted of conspiring to destroy American democracy. Not just freed. Not just pardoned. Erased. As if it never happened.
The Justice Department asked a federal court to vacate convictions against a dozen former members of the right-wing Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, most of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy — aiming to wipe away some of the final Capitol riot charges still standing. The filing was signed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
Let’s talk about who these men are. Not as political props. Not as talking points. As people with documented records of what they did and what they intended.
Elmer Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison after prosecutors proved he and his followers plotted to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power after Trump lost in 2020. On the day of the riot, Rhodes coordinated activities as a group of Oath Keepers marched on the Capitol. Prosecutors said Rhodes and his followers stockpiled guns for possible use by “quick reaction force” teams staged at a Virginia hotel. A quick reaction force. That is a military term. That is what they were building.
Ethan Nordean, one of the Proud Boys’ ground commanders that day, was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Joseph Biggs received 17 years. Zachary Rehl — captured on video spraying officers with pepper spray, then telling a court he did not “recall” doing it — received 15 years.
Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys’ national chairman, acted in prosecutors’ words as “a general rather than a soldier” and received 22 years — the longest sentence handed down for any January 6 defendant. A federal judge applied a terrorism enhancement in his case. That is not a figure of speech. That is a legal designation with a specific legal standard that the evidence met.
Trump supporters left more than 100 police officers injured that day — beaten with flagpoles, batons, wooden clubs, and baseball bats, subjected to stun guns and chemical sprays, engaged in hand-to-hand combat. That is not a protest that got out of hand. That is a coordinated attack on the constitutional process of transferring power.
Now let’s talk about who these groups are.
The Proud Boys are not a fraternal organization with a branding problem. The Southern Poverty Law Center designates them a hate group. Canada formally designated them a terrorist entity following January 6th. The Anti-Defamation League describes them as a right-wing extremist group whose use of violence and targeted harassment is a core feature of their ideology, not a bug. To achieve the fourth and highest degree of membership, a Proud Boy must “engage in a major conflict for the cause” — defined as either a serious physical fight or an arrest. Getting arrested for violence is a promotion. That is the organization whose convictions Trump’s DOJ just moved to erase.
The Oath Keepers were founded in 2009 by Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate and former Army paratrooper who specifically recruited from the ranks of people with weapons training, tactical experience, and access to sensitive information. The ADL described the group as “heavily armed extremists with a conspiratorial and anti-government mindset looking for potential showdowns with the government.” When hackers breached the Oath Keepers’ servers, a leaked membership list of 38,000 names included over 370 apparent current law enforcement employees and more than 100 current military personnel. That is not a coincidence. That is a staffing strategy.
Now here is what this erasure actually means in practical terms, and why calling it a pardon misses the point entirely.
Trump already sprung nearly all of these men from prison on his first day back in office. That was the commutation. But their convictions remained on record. Felons cannot own firearms. Felons cannot hold certain positions. A felony conviction is a legal designation that follows you. If these convictions are vacated, these men will no longer be prohibited from owning firearms. Read that sentence again. Men convicted of seditious conspiracy for organizing a violent attack on the United States Capitol will be legally permitted to arm themselves — because the administration they tried to install is now removing their disqualifications.
The DOJ’s motion asks the court to dismiss the charges with prejudice, meaning the government is permanently barred from ever bringing them again. It did not happen. There is no record. Come on in. Welcome back.
The filing was written to sound procedural and bloodless. Prosecutors wrote that vacating convictions was “in the interests of justice.” The interests of justice were served by juries who heard the evidence and convicted these men. The interests of justice were served by judges who applied terrorism enhancements because the law demanded it. What is happening now is not justice. It is the erasure of justice by the people who benefited from the crime.
Greg Rosen, the former chief of the DOJ’s Capitol Siege Section, called the move “a reminder of what drove the pardons in the first place — that political violence is acceptable as long as your politics align. And it’s a continuing and sad commentary on the current state of the Department.”
We want to be precise about what we are saying, because we do not speculate beyond the documented record. What the documented record shows is this: the president of the United States incited a violent attack on Congress, freed the men who carried it out, directed his own Justice Department to permanently expunge their records, and is in the process of restoring their right to arm themselves. He has called them “patriots” and “great people.” His administration has floated paying them restitution with taxpayer money. At least one pardoned January 6 defendant, Jake Lang, has publicly stated he would “deputize the Proud Boys” to conduct law enforcement operations if elected to the U.S. Senate.
Meanwhile, the regular military answers to a chain of command that has purged officers who failed political loyalty tests. The FBI has been gutted. The institutions that would normally push back are being systematically dismantled.
The pattern is visible. The receipts exist.
At least 33 pardoned January 6 defendants have been rearrested, charged, or sentenced for other crimes since receiving clemency. Six have been charged with child sex crimes. At least five face illegal weapons charges. Two face rape charges. A Reagan-appointed federal judge who presided over January 6 cases said from the bench that in his entire time on the bench, he had never seen “such meritless justifications of criminal activity.” A Yale law professor called the pardons “a president pardoning his allies for their participation in a violent coup d’etat.”
These are not fringe opinions. These are the assessments of people who sat inside these cases and watched.
The Department of Justice was built to prosecute crimes. Not to launder them. What happened Tuesday night was not a legal filing. It was a loyalty signal to extremists, a message to every officer who was beaten, every prosecutor who built these cases, every witness who testified: your work meant nothing. Your injuries meant nothing. Your testimony meant nothing. The people who broke your bones have been made clean.
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