Four members of the Proud Boys: Joe Biggs, Zachary Rehl, Ethan Nordean, and Dominic Pezzola were indicted by the Biden Department of Justice on charges of sedition, along with other felonies for seeking to stop the January 6 certification of the 2020 presidential election. Biggs, Rehl, and Nordean were convicted and sentenced for seditious conspiracy. Pezzola was acquitted, but was jailed on other felonies.
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump commuted the sentences involving Proud Boys members, including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, but did not issue full pardons. Now, the Department of Justice has moved to vacate those Proud Boy member convictions and make it impossible for these charges to be lodged against them ever again.
JUST IN: The Justice Department is moving to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys leaders who led hundreds of allies to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) April 14, 2026
They had previously had lengthy sentences commuted, but not pardoned, by Trump.https://t.co/wMBteFwn45 pic.twitter.com/PfIygivCLv
The Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of right-wing extremist Proud Boys leaders for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Prosecutors asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to vacate the Proud Boys’ convictions so it can move to dismiss the cases with prejudice, meaning the leaders could not be tried on those charges again.
The DOJ signaled that similar motions would be filed on behalf of the Oath Keepers. The trial and conviction of both groups were considered by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to be the "crown jewel" of the J6 prosecutions. This DOJ action effectively renders these prosecutions null and void.
The government also signaled that a similar request would be imminent in the cases against members of the Oath Keepers, including leader Stewart Rhodes, and other Proud Boys. The move could wipe away the final convictions tied to the Capitol attack.
As the Motion to Vacate read:
The government’s motion to vacate in this case is consistent with its practice of moving the Supreme Court to vacate convictions in cases where the government has decided in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of a criminal case is in the interests of justice—motions that the Supreme Court routinely grants.
[...]
Wherefore, the United States respectfully requests that the Court vacate the defendants’ convictions and remand to the district court so that the government may move to dismiss the indictment with prejudice under Rule 48(a).
Dive Deeper: BREAKING: Former Proud Boys Leader Sentenced to 22 Years in Prison for Role in J6 Riot
Promise Kept: With the Stroke of a Pen, President Trump Issues Mass Pardons for J6 Defendants
As RedState reported, President Trump pardoned 1,500 people under indictment or already convicted for J6, and commuted the sentences of 14. These commutations included members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
Officially, President Trump has commuted the sentences of Proud Boys and Oath Keeper members and issued "a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021" for other defendants. Or, as Trump has called them in the past, J6 "hostages."
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