On August 4, 2026, in a ruling that closes the book on one of the most high-profile January 6 prosecutions/persecutions, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta (an Obama appointee) on August 4, “reluctantly” granted the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss with prejudice the indictments against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and seven other Oath Keepers: Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, Robert Minuta, Edward Vallejo, Joseph Hackett, and David Moerschel.
Those eight Oath Keepers were among the fourteen Oath Keepers and Proud Boys whose sentences were commuted rather than pardoned by President Trump on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2025. Their sentences had been reduced to time served, but they remained “convicted felons.”
As we previously reported, on April 14, 2026—three days before the defendants’ appellate briefs were due to be filed in the D.C. Court of Appeals—the Trump DOJ filed an unopposed motion to vacate their convictions and remand their cases to the District Court for dismissal with prejudice. On May 21, 2026, the Court of Appeals granted that DOJ motion (as well as a nearly identical motion in the Proud Boys case).With the convictions now vacated, all that remained was for the D.C. District Courts—the trial courts—to grant the DOJ’s unopposed (meaning the defendants agreed) motions to dismiss the charges with prejudice.
On July 10, 2025, District Judge Tim Kelly, recognizing he had no discretion to do otherwise, granted the motion to dismiss with prejudice in the Proud Boys case with a very short statement:
“Because the Constitution and Rule 48(a) require it, the Court will grant the Government’s motion and dismiss this case with prejudice.”
In sharp contrast to Judge Kelly, District Judge Mehta chose to dig in his heels and demand that the DOJ provide more information and additional reasoning to support its contention that dismissal was in the interest of justice. The DOJ responded by reiterating its clearly established discretion not to prosecute a case and by providing supporting case law holding that the court lacked any authority to compel the Executive Branch to prosecute a case where the motion to dismiss was not opposed by the defendants.
Stewart Rhodes’ fundraiser to rebuild his life and rebuild Oath Keepers organization: givesendgo.com/oath
When Mehta finally issued his order to dismiss with prejudice, he could have issued a short statement on the law, like Judge Kelly did, before granting the motion. Instead, Mehta editorialized, making no secret of his displeasure.
He wrote that he “strongly disagree[d]” with the decision, called the dismissal an “epilogue [that] diminishes the gravity of that day,” claimed it bestowed “unearned grace” by wiping records clean, and lamented that he “cannot write a different ending.” He recounted the government’s trial narrative at length as if it were established fact and, like the prosecutors, cherry-picked, conflated, and put words and intent into the mouths and minds of the defendants that were never actually stated or proven, while entirely ignoring the defense’s trial narrative and clear evidence of innocence presented at trial.
Mehta also failed to mention the many procedural and constitutional problems at trial, not least of which is the now-manifestly proven perjury by officers Harry Dunn and David Lazarus (thanks to the excellent work of investigative journalist Steve Baker).
Judge Mehta’s nearly three-page dissertation on why he considers the defendants actually guilty, and why he thinks dismissal was an affront to justice and a danger to democracy, reads like a closing statement by the prosecution in a trial.
You can read Judge Mehta’s temper tantrum here:
After all that completely unnecessary partisan political commentary, Judge Mehta nonetheless granted the motion to dismiss with prejudice under Rule 48(a), acknowledging the Executive Branch’s primacy over charging decisions.
This means that, despite Mehta’s displeasure, these men are now finally restored to their rightful position as innocent, unindicted men, with all their rights as citizens restored, including their right to keep and bear arms—and for many of them, their rights as veterans are also now fully restored. And they cannot be prosecuted again for those charges.
Defense counsel for Oath Keepers defendant Edward Vallejo wasted no time objecting to the judicial commentary. In a motion filed the same day (ECF No. 982), attorneys Stephen R. Sady and Kurt D. Hermansen moved to strike what they termed “unconstitutional dicta” from Mehta’s Memorandum Order and Opinion (ECF No. 981). The motion is clear and forceful:
“Ed Vallejo was innocent before trial and he is innocent now. The Court’s dismissal of the indictment with prejudice based on deference to prosecutorial discretion does not open the door for judicial opinion regarding disputed elements of an offense never finally adjudicated. The Fifth Amendment’s presumption of innocence further counsels against advisory statements regarding culpability based on the trial prosecutor’s version of the fact that have not been finally established to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt and affirmed on appeal.”
Counsel detailed how the original trial was “marred by serious prejudicial errors,” citing intervening Supreme Court decisions—Fischer v. United States (invalidating the government’s theory on half the counts), Trump v. United States (presidential role inadequately considered), United States v. Hansen (First Amendment protections inadequately applied), and Dubin v. United States (statutory construction rules ignored)—plus errors in jury selection and inadmissible hearsay. They noted that, unlike a pardon scenario, the convictions were properly appealed and vacated, restoring the presumption of innocence under Nelson v. Colorado and Johnson v. Mississippi.
The motion concludes that Mehta “incorrectly injected advisory opinions that are contrary to the presumption of innocence and unfair to an innocent man. The court’s commentary adopted wholesale the government’s theory of the case while ignoring the substantial defense case for innocence.” It asks the court to strike the guilt-presuming expressions as advisory dicta infringing the Fifth Amendment.
Legal counsel for other defendants are now considering joining that motion or writing their own.
This is not Mehta’s first display of bias against the Oath Keepers defendants.
In December 2024, after Trump won the election but before President-elect Trump took office, Judge Mehta, while sentencing another defendant, declared from the bench that the notion of Stewart Rhodes being “absolved” was “frightening and ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country.” He had previously called Rhodes an “ongoing threat and a peril to this country and its democracy.”
Then, days after Rhodes’s release under President Trump’s commutation in January 2025, Rhodes visited Capitol Hill, met with members of Congress to advocate for the release of fellow Oath Keeper Jeremy Brown, and spoke to the media. Judge Mehta promptly issued an order banning Rhodes and several co-defendants from entering Washington, D.C., or the Capitol grounds without court permission. He later reversed the enforcement of that restriction after the Trump DOJ objected, but the initial move underscored his hostility.
The lawfare has not fully ended.
Multiple civil lawsuits brought by members of Congress and groups of Capitol Police officers (represented by leftist law firms) remain pending before Judge Mehta. These suits name Trump, the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys organizations, Stewart Rhodes, and several of his co-defendants, as well as Enrique Tarrio and several other Proud Boys leaders by name, alleging a conspiracy to “disenfranchise black Americans” and “attack democracy” by disrupting the counting of the elector slates on January 6, 2021, with President Trump cast as the kingpin of the conspiracy.
Those civil cases have been stayed pending resolution of Trump’s challenges based on privilege and official-acts immunity, but the civil front of the “lawfare” effort continues and it is telling that all of those pending civil cases are still in front of Judge Mehta.
Mehta’s order dismissing the criminal case against the Oat Keepers with prejudice is a victory for the defendants and a formal end to the J6 criminal prosecutions. Vallejo’s motion to strike the residual dicta forces the issue of whether a judge may continue to pronounce on guilt after the presumption of innocence has been restored and the government itself has walked away.
The record of his prior statements and actions only heightens the questions about impartiality in a case that the Executive Branch has now closed, and raises the specter of a judge who is incapable of being impartial presiding over still-ongoing partisan political civil cases against President Trump and some of his most stalwart and loyal supporters—men who refused to turn on him even after extended solitary confinement and instead went to trial and then went to prison without submitting to the incredible pressure to just “make a deal” and blame President Trump.
If you would like to help these principled and courageous men rebuild their lives, you may donate to their GiveSendGo fundraisers.
Stewart Rhodes’ fundraiser to rebuild his life and rebuild Oath Keepers organization: givesendgo.com/oath
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