The federal judge who presided over the seditious conspiracy trial of far-right Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes overturned an order prohibiting Rhodes and his co-defendants from going to Washington, D.C. The Justice Department had asked him to alter the sentences of the group members, who were serving years in prison after being convicted of offenses relating to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta said Monday, “[I]t would be improper for the court post-commutation to modify the original sentences,” but because President Trump’s clemency “can reasonably be read to extinguish enforcement of Defendants’ terms of supervised release,” the judge vacated his order.
On Friday, Mehta ordered Oath Keeper members Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, Roberto Minuta, Edward Vallejo, David Moerchel, and Joseph Hacket to be barred from entering Washington, D.C., and the United States Capitol building “without first obtaining permission from the Court.”
The ruling sparked strong resistance from Washington, D.C. Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Martin, who stated that the defendants, including Rhodes, were “no longer subject to the terms of supervised release and probation.”
Mehta reversed his ruling, saying he eventually deemed Martin’s interpretation of President Trump’s unconditional commute to be “reasonable.”
Last week, as part of the sweeping clemency granted to those linked to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, President Trump pardoned over 1,500 prisoners, but chose to reduce the sentences of Rhodes, his co-defendants, and certain members of the Proud Boys group who were also charged with seditious conspiracy. Not all commutations resulted in convictions for seditious conspiracy.
Rhodes and the other Jan. 6 defendants arrived on Capitol Hill days after their commutations were granted.
The judge wrote that while the parties initially operated “as if the commutations addressed only the custodial portions of Defendants’ sentences but not their terms of supervised release,” on further review and in response to the defendants’ objections, he found that once a commutation is issued for a defendant, they are “required to take no further action to receive its benefit.”
“It is not for this court to divine why President Trump commuted Defendants’ sentences, or to assess whether it was sensible to do so,” explained Mehta.
