Stewart Rhodes, former leader of the Oath Keepers, speaks during a press availability outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 21, 2025.
The Oath Keepers are a far right group who played a key role in President Donald Trump's attempt to overthrow the government during the January 6th insurrection. Although some of the Oath Keepers have since then turned on the Trump-run state, from opposing snitches to the president's war in Iran, Trump remains loyal to them — and now a judge appointed by President Barack Obama is letting them off the hook.
As first reported by All Rise News, Trump's Justice Department moved to dismiss charges against the Oath Keepers for their violent actions on January 6th, and Judge Amit P. Mehta "reluctantly" went along with it.
Judge Mehta, who was appointed by Obama, expressed his dismay in his ruling.
"After securing vacatur of the convictions of eight Defendants in this case—all members of a group known as the Oath Keepers—the United States now moves pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a) to dismiss the indictment," Mehta wrote. "Reluctantly, the court grants the motion."
He proceeded to point out that the guilt of the accused seems beyond reasonable doubt. At the same time, he felt he did not have the authority to force the Justice Department to proceed with a prosecution it wished to dismiss, regardless of their seemingly partisan reasons for doing so.
"This is the last of the prosecutions seeking to hold accountable those responsible for the events of January 6. That book is now closed," Mehta wrote. "Today’s epilogue diminishes the gravity of that day, denigrates the work of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who secured these convictions, and excuses criminal acts that caused a centuries-long pillar of our democracy—the peaceful transfer of presidential power—to buckle."
He concluded, "The court cannot write a different ending."
The Oath Keepers are a far-right, anti-government militia founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, a former U.S. Army paratrooper and disbarred attorney. The group primarily recruits current and former military personnel, law enforcement officers, and first responders, capitalizing on their specialized training. Members pledge to fulfill the organization's core mission: disobeying orders they deem unconstitutional, a philosophy that frequently manifested in heavily armed deployments at volatile civil standoffs, including the 2014 Bundy Ranch dispute.
The group reached national prominence following its heavily coordinated role in the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Moving in military-style "stack" formations, members breached the building in a deliberate attempt to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election. The subsequent federal investigation culminated in late 2022 and 2023 with the high-profile convictions of Rhodes and several top deputies for seditious conspiracy—a rare, Civil War-era charge. Rhodes was ultimately sentenced to 18 years in federal prison. However, the political landscape shifted dramatically when the executive branch returned to Donald Trump, who used his presidential authority to orchestrate a sweeping reversal of January 6 prosecutions through pardons, commutations, and directed Department of Justice dismissals.