Wipe out

Dragging those last few boxes out of the attic.

Federal prosecutors are seeking to wipe out the seditious conspiracy convictions of 12 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who helped plan the Jan. 6, 2021, riots and led the charge into the U.S. Capitol, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

The request, from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro of D.C., is likely to be granted because prosecutors have broad discretion to pursue or drop criminal charges, even after defendants have been convicted. Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers and a lead organizer behind the riots, is among those whose convictions Pirro is seeking to erase.

The move to undo the most serious convictions stemming from the assault on the Capitol marks the latest step in President Donald Trump’s quest to rewrite the event’s violent history. A mob of Trump supporters gathered in D.C. and disrupted Congress’s certification of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential race, echoing Trump’s false claims that the election had been stolen.

A lot of people were injured. Some of them died. Never mind; those boxes are taking up too much space. Just throw them out. No not recycle; I said throw them out.

Trump, on the first day of his second term, issued a blanket pardon that cleared more than 1,500 rioters’ criminal records for offenses related to the insurrection. That pardon did not extend to the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Instead, Trump at the time commuted the prison sentences of 14 of those defendants, freeing them from federal custody. That clemency grant, however, did not delete the convictions from their records.

Well thank god we’ve finally corrected that tragic injustice.

Pirro said that once the latest slate of convictions is vacated, she intends to file motions to dismiss all the underlying charges in the trial court. That move, once approved by a judge, would fully clear all 12 defendants’ criminal records for having participated in the Jan. 6 riots.

In court filings Tuesday, Pirro gave no details explaining her action, saying only that “the United States has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.”

What kind of justice is that exactly?