Donald Trump says treatment of Capitol riot defendants was "a grave national injustice"

A federal judge has reluctantly ended the seditious conspiracy case against members of the far-right Oath Keepers extremist group, granting the Trump administration’s request to undo their convictions. Judge Amit Mehta said he was bound by law to approve the dismissal, but he sharply criticized the move, saying it undercut the seriousness of the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack and disrespected the prosecutors and officers who won the verdicts. The case involved Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, whose 18-year sentence was commuted in January 2025. Trump has defended his broad pardons and commutations of Capitol riot defendants as correcting unfair treatment and helping the country recover. Mehta wrote that the ruling closes the final major prosecution tied to the Capitol riot.