On Friday night, May 29, 2026, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta issued a brief order deferring ruling on the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss with prejudice the underlying indictments against eight remaining Oath Keepers defendants whose sentences were commuted rather than pardoned.
The DOJ had filed the motion on May 22 following the D.C. Court of Appeals’ vacatur of the Oath Keepers’ convictions and remand to Mehta for consideration of the anticipated motion to dismiss.
While the DC Court of Appeals promptly granted the DOJ motion to vacate the convictions and remand, Judge Mehta (an Obama appointee) is asserting that the government’s motion to dismiss is “insufficiently detailed” and lacking a sufficient “statement of reasons and underlying factual basis,” ordering the DOJ to provide him more information by June 5 on why dismissal with prejudice serves the public interest.
This move stands in stark tension with established precedent affirming broad prosecutorial discretion. Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a), the government may dismiss an indictment “with leave of court,” but courts’ role is narrowly cabined.
In Rinaldi v. United States (1977), the Supreme Court held that a district court abuses its discretion by denying such a motion absent a showing that the dismissal is tainted by prosecutorial harassment or bad faith aimed at the defendant.
The principal object of the “leave of court” requirement is to protect defendants from repeated charging and dismissal, not to second-guess executive charging decisions.
In short, Rinaldi’s bad-faith exception is a narrow shield for defendants, not a broad sword for judges to veto executive charging policy. Courts applying it post-Rinaldi have rarely sustained denials without strong evidence of defendant-targeted misconduct in the dismissal request itself.
DOJ filings in these cases (and in the remaining Proud Boy cases) have cited controlling authority that the executive branch holds complete discretion to end a prosecution.
When a motion to dismiss with prejudice is uncontested by defendants (who thereby face no jeopardy of re-prosecution), the judge’s role is minimal—to safeguard defendants’ rights, which are not threatened here.
By demanding a deeper factual justification and public-interest analysis, Judge Mehta appears to be stepping into the role of prosecutor, weighing policy and evidence in a manner reserved for the Executive.
The DOJ is clearly seeking dismissal with prejudice precisely because the Trump Administration wants to end the partisan lawfare against Trump supporters and J6 political prisoners, who President Trump correctly referred to as “hostages.”
The goal is to prevent even the possibility of a future Democrat President and Attorney General re-trying these men on these same charges, and to remove the taint of an indictment.
That is why the Trump Administration DOJ moved the DC Court of Appeals to vacate the convictions (also done with the remaining commuted Proud Boys) and to remand the cases back to the trial courts for dismissal with prejudice.
This is precisely what was done in the wake of those pardoned J6ers who had active appeals pending when they were pardoned – their convictions were vacated and their indictments were dismissed with prejudice.
And that is what Judge Mehta likely finds offensive – he apparently wants these men to be vulnerable to possibly being re-tried on the same Biden regime indictments once the Democrats take power again, and he wants the taint of indictments to continue.
In sharp contrast, the DC Court of Appeals did not demand further information or a “statement of reasons and underlying factual basis” from the DOJ when it moved to vacate the judgments and remand.
The Court of Appeals properly deferred to the DOJs discretion and simply issued an order granting the motion to vacate and remand.
Mehta’s Prior Overreach: Attempted Restrictions on Stewart Rhodes and His Co-Defendants free Speech and Assembly Post-Commutation
This is not Judge Mehta’s first foray beyond typical judicial bounds in these cases. After President Trump commuted the sentences of Stewart Rhodes and his co-defendants on January 20, 2025, Rhodes promptly visited congressional offices on Capitol Hill to personally advocate for the release of fellow Oath Keeper and Special Forces veteran Jeremy Brown, who was still being held in federal prison by willful leftist judges and BOP officials who refused to acknowledge that President Trump’s pardon applied to Brown’s conviction. Three days later, on January 24, 2025, Judge Mehta issued an order barring Rhodes and his co-defendants from entering the U.S. Capitol or Washington, D.C., without his express permission.
Acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin immediately pushed back, filing a motion arguing that Mehta’s restrictions violated the defendants’ rights and that Judge Mehta was disregarding President Trump’s intent to lift all restrictions and burdens on their free speech and assembly.
Mehta then issued a revised decision asserting that while he retained jurisdiction to impose supervised release conditions, he was effectively releasing them from all probation, because he expected the Executive Branch would not enforce any remaining terms.
The episode carried the air of political theater—imposing restrictions that garnered sensational headlines in leftist media about Judge Mehta banning Stewart Rhodes from entering the Capitol, only to concede their unenforceability and ending any and all supervised release restrictions.
Additional Context: Judge Mehta’s Record of Personal Animus and Contempt for Free Speech in the Oath Keepers Cases
Mehta’s latest order fits a pattern.
In December 2024, during the sentencing of another Oath Keeper, Todd Wison, Mehta stated from the bench that it would be “frightening” if newly elected President Trump pardoned Stewart Rhodes: “The notion that Stewart Rhodes could be absolved of his actions is frightening and ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country.”
Todd Wilson had made a “deal” with the prosecutors, pleading guilty to Seditious Conspiracy and also “cooperated” with the prosecution/persecution of the others, and was therefore rewarded by Mehta, who gave Wilson no prison time, and probation only, for the same charged offense Mehta gave Rhodes 18 years for.
At Rhodes’ own May 2023 sentencing (to 18 years), Mehta read aloud from a recent jailhouse interview in which Rhodes reasserted that the 2020 election was stolen, illegal, and unconstitutional, that Biden was an illegitimate usurper, and that this fact had put the country in a constitutional crisis and on the “Founders’ path” because when you cannot have fair, lawful elections, you no longer have the meaningful ability to elect your own representatives or President, you effectively no longer have self-government, and you are in the same place the Founding generation was, and will have to walk the same path – having to eventually nullify and resist illegitimate and tyrannical government.
Though Rhodes’ statements were manifestly First Amendment protected political free speech, Mehta responded in substance that “we cannot have this in our democracy,” treating Rhodes’ continued political speech as evidence of ongoing dangerousness warranting a lengthy prison term.
After quoting Rhodes’ jailhouse interview, Mehta declared: “You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country, to the republic and to the very fabric of our democracy… You are smart, you are compelling, and you are charismatic.
Frankly, that is what makes you dangerous, even while incarcerated.” Then he sentenced Rhodes to 18 years and said “good luck.”
Such politically charged statements from the bench by Mehta, directly targeting and punishing First Amendment-protected activity – much like the Oath Keepers’ political speech about the 2020 election being used as “state of mind” evidence against them at trial—underscore the judge’s overt partisan hostility toward the defendants’ core political views and their free speech.
Such politically charged comments from the bench raise serious questions about Mehta’s capacity to serve as an impartial judge in these cases.
Reasons for the DOJ’s dismissal push are not hard to discern. Prosecutorial Misconduct and Venue Bias Undermined the Original Convictions.
Independent reporting, particularly by Steve Baker of Blaze Media and coverage in The Gateway Pundit, has highlighted serious issues with the government’s case.
Key witnesses including Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Special Agent David Lazarus appear to have committed perjury. Baker’s analysis of Capitol CCTV footage showed Lazarus could not have witnessed the alleged confrontation between Dunn and Oath Keepers inside the building—he was in a different Senate office building across Constitution Avenue at the time.
The DOJ possessed this video but failed to flag it as exculpatory Brady material, instead burying it among a massive volume of footage provided to the defense. Such nondisclosure, combined with other documented issues, taints the convictions.
Broader systemic problems compound this: the D.C. jury pool’s well-documented bias against January 6 defendants and Trump supporters.
Venue change requests were denied across J6 cases despite clear evidence of prejudice, exacerbated by the timing of the highly publicized J6 Select Committee show-trial “hearings’ immediately before trials, which nearly all jurors admitted to watching. The jury pool in Washington DC was intentionally, spectacularly tainted in advance of trial. These factors made fair trials in Washington, D.C. impossible.
Civil Lawfare Persists
Even if criminal cases finally end, civil suits continue. Two major 2021 leftist “lawfare” lawsuits—one by members of Congress (originally filed by Rep Benny Thompson on February 16, 2021) and another by a group of Capitol Police officers—remain pending in Judge Mehta’s court against President Trump, Rhodes and his co-defendants, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and against Enrique Tarrio and several of his co-defendants.
Both civil suits invoke the Ku Klux Klan Act (42 U.S.C. § 1985), alleging a conspiracy lead by President Trump to “disenfranchise Black people” and “attack democracy” by challenging the 2020 election results and “attacking the Capitol.”
These civil cases recycle the same tired leftist “insurrection!” false-narrative now rejected by the Executive Branch in the criminal context, ensuring the lawfare battle shifts arenas but continues.
It is telling that both of these “zombie” leftist lawfare J6 lawsuits from 2021 against President Trump and his supporters are in front of Judge Mehta.
Frankly, given Mehta’s well-documented political bias and partisanship, he should recuse himself from these cases – but he won’t for the same reasons he wants to delay granting the motion to dismiss.
To be blunt, Judge Mehta has never acted like an impartial judge in any of these J6 cases, and has always acted like a partisan prosecutor and political activist, and he should be impeached by Congress and removed from the bench (along with several other DC District Court judges who are also clearly political partisans).
Judge Mehta’s latest order delays closure for defendants whose sentences were already commuted. It underscores ongoing tensions between branches: an Executive exercising prosecutorial discretion versus a district judge demanding veto power over policy-driven dismissals.
Precedent from the Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit strongly favors deference to the DOJ here. Continued resistance risks eroding separation of powers and prolonging unjustified stigma on defendants long after clemency.
It will be interesting to see how the DOJ responds, but the core principle remains: charging and dismissal decisions belong to the Executive, not the bench. And that is what the DOJ needs to make clear, even if it requires an expedited order from the DC Court of Appeals.
Note: Stewart Rhodes is now rebuilding Oath Keepers, which will drive leftists across the nation insane, and if you’d like to support that important work, please donate here: givesendgo.com/oath
The post Judge Mehta Overreaches (AGAIN): Steps Into The Role Of Prosecutor, Demanding DOJ Provide Him “Reasons And Underlying Factual Basis” To Justify Oath Keepers Motion To Dismiss appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
