Judge dismisses remaining Proud Boys case following Trump clemency order

Summary

The federal case against the Proud Boys, one of the most significant prosecutions to emerge from the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, has been formally dismissed after the judge presiding over the trial found no legal basis to preserve the convictions in the wake of Donald Trump's sweeping clemency grant. Trump issued the pardons shortly after returning to office, part of a broader effort to unwind the Justice Department's January 6 prosecutorial work. The Proud Boys leaders had been convicted of seditious conspiracy, a charge that carries enormous symbolic and legal weight and had taken years of federal investigation and trial to secure. With the clemency in place, the judge concluded that the convictions could not stand. The dismissal is the latest in a series of cases that the Trump administration has successfully unwound since January, methodically reversing what had been the largest domestic-terrorism prosecution in modern American history. For prosecutors and victims' advocates who spent years building the cases, the dismissals represent a definitive end. For Trump and his allies, they fulfill a campaign promise to pardon those he called "hostages."