On Friday, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ordered that members of the Oath Keepers group whose sentences stemming from Jan. 6 were recently pardoned or commuted by President Donald Trump be barred from the District of Columbia, including the U.S. Capitol and an adjacent area, unless given permission from the court.
Among those affected is the group's founder Stewart Rhodes, whose sentence was commuted by President Trump, along with others who were pardoned; as my colleague Streiff noted, this was an adjustment from the policy promised on the campaign trail:
Releasing non-violent J6 prisoners was a campaign pledge.
...
Splitting the prisoners into two groups and releasing them both, but not making the releases equal, made a lot of sense. Everyone would be out of jail, but the "worst" offenders would not be pardoned.
Then earlier this week, Trump signed both J6 pardons and commutations, the latter of which included "violent" offenders:
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Here's what Judge Mehta wrote in today's order:
“You must not knowingly enter the United States Capitol Building or onto surrounding grounds known as Capitol Square … without first obtaining the permission from the court,” Mehta wrote in his order, which he also said applied to the other Oath Keepers whose sentences were commuted by Trump.
The order, which also was imposed on some of Rhodes’ co-defendants, comes just two days after Rhodes visited the Capitol on Wednesday, Politico reported in the piece linked above:
For several hours at the Capitol, Rhodes interviewed with numerous reporters, met with allies in a Dunkin’ Donuts and visited Republican lawmakers.
The judge has made no secret of the fact that he is anti-Trump, repeating the J6 Committee and Democrat Party's 2024 narrative about the Republican nominee being a threat to democracy as recently as December 2024.
Mehta said "that the thought of Rhodes being 'absolved' by the incoming Trump administration was 'frightening' and 'ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country.'”
The Justice Department, now in the hands of acting attorney of D.C., Ed Martin is giving major pushback immediately to the judge's order. On Friday, Martin "signed the motion asking U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to reverse his position, issued just hours earlier on Friday. The defendants 'are no longer subject to terms of supervised release and probation.'"
He continued in a later press release, making a great comparison to Biden's last-minute pardons of family members and people like General Mark Milley, saying that Americans would be in an uproar if a judge banned them from the Capitol:
“If a judge decided that Jim Biden, General Mark Milley, or another individual were forbidden to visit America’s capital — even after receiving a last-minute, preemptive pardon from the former President — I believe most Americans would object.
"The individuals referenced in our motion have had their sentences commuted — period, end of sentence.”
This echoes the point RedState's Streiff made in his piece on Joe Biden pardoning many from his administration, along with the members of the J6 committee. He wrote:
The other troubling part is that the most unjust sentences, those of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and 3-Percenters for "seditious conspiracy," were allowed to stand while John Brennan, James Comey, and Adam Schiff are allowed to walk around free.
Of course, he even issued last-minute pardons--on Inauguration Day--of members of his own family.
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Rhodes reacted to Judge Mehta's order Friday in a video, asking Pres. Trump to issue new pardons in light of Mehta's "retaliation":
Rhodes responded to Mehta’s order, in a video posted Friday by ally Ivan Raiklin, urging Trump to grant him and other Oath Keepers full pardons so they could be free of all their obligations to the court. He said Mehta’s order appeared to be “retaliation” for his decision to go to the Capitol Wednesday to meet with lawmakers and reporters.
This is a developing story, and we'll update you on any new information, as warranted.
UPDATE: You can read the judge's order here, and the DOJ's motion to dismiss filing here.
[Correction: An earlier version of this story asserted that the judge's order was narrowly defined as barring the Oath Keepers members from the Capitol. The order states that they are forbidden from entering all of D.C. We regret the error.]
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