A federal judge dismissed the final criminal case connected to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot on Aug. 4, 2026. Judge Amit Mehta threw out the case against eight members of the Oath Keepers after the Justice Department asked him to. ABC News

The Trump Justice Department moved to erase the Oath Keepers' convictions and drop the case entirely. Mehta agreed, but he was not happy about it. He used his ruling to criticize the department's decision. WBAL-TV The Washington Post

Mehta called his dismissal an "epilogue" that "diminishes the gravity of Jan. 6" and "excuses criminal acts that caused the peaceful transfer of presidential power to buckle." NPR

The Oath Keepers are a far-right group whose members were charged with seditious conspiracy, a law from the Civil War era that makes it a crime to plot to overthrow the U.S. government by force. Juries had convicted Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and five other members of that charge. In May 2023, Mehta sentenced Rhodes to 18 years in prison, calling him an ongoing threat to the country. NPR

The dismissal follows a broader pattern of action by President Trump on Jan. 6 cases. On his first day in office, Trump pardoned nearly every defendant charged in connection with the Capitol riot. A pardon forgives a crime. In January 2026, Trump commuted the prison sentences of several Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders as part of a sweeping act of clemency covering all 1,500-plus Jan. 6 defendants. A commutation shortens or ends a sentence but does not erase the conviction. NPR PBS NewsHour

Trump had also proposed a $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization fund" to compensate Jan. 6 rioters. The proposal met resistance from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and Trump later said the fund seemed dead. NPR

James Lee Bright, a lawyer for Stewart Rhodes, said in a social media post that seditious conspiracy "should never have been charged" and called the charge "a thought crime." NPR The Hill

The broader context here is how presidential power and the courts interact. A dismissal order is normally routine paperwork to close a case. Mehta used it to deliver a written rebuke of the Justice Department, saying the decision diminishes the gravity of a violent attack on the Capitol and excuses criminal conduct. That a federal judge would use a routine filing to call out the executive branch shows real tension between the courts and the current Justice Department over Jan. 6 cases.

The practical effect is that no federal seditious conspiracy case from Jan. 6 remains open. Seditious conspiracy was the most serious charge any Jan. 6 defendant faced. The Justice Department's decision to erase those convictions, combined with the mass clemency, means the legal record from the largest domestic prosecution in U.S. history has been largely undone through executive action. The convictions were never overturned on appeal. They were erased at the Justice Department's request.

Rhodes's 18-year sentence, the longest given to any Jan. 6 defendant, is now off the books. The case never went to a higher court, leaving key legal questions about how the seditious conspiracy law applies to Jan. 6 unresolved.