On August 4, 2026, in a ruling that closes the book on one of the most high-profile January 6 prosecutions/persecutions, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta (an Obama appointee) on August 4, “reluctantly” granted the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss with prejudice the indictments against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and seven other Oath Keepers: Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, Robert Minuta, Edward Vallejo, Joseph Hackett, and David Moerschel.
Those eight Oath Keepers were among the fourteen Oath Keepers and Proud Boys whose sentences were commuted rather than pardoned by President Trump on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2025. Their sentences had been reduced to time served, but they remained “convicted felons.”
As we previously reported, on April 14, 2026—three days before the defendants’ appellate briefs were due to be filed in the D.C. Court of Appeals—the Trump DOJ filed an unopposed motion to vacate their convictions and remand their cases to the District Court for dismissal with prejudice. On May 21, 2026, the Court of Appeals granted that DOJ motion (as well as a nearly identical motion in the Proud Boys case).With the convictions now vacated, all that remained was for the D.C. District Courts—the trial courts—to grant the DOJ’s unopposed (meaning the defendants agreed) motions to dismiss the charges with prejudice.
Hellbound and Down 