US Justice Department seeks to overturn capitol riot convictions

The US Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to overturn the convictions of 12 people who were found guilty of seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots.

The department said the 12 individuals, eight affiliated with far-right group the Oath Keepers and four with the neo-fascist violent group the Proud Boys, should have their convictions fully dismissed, according to CNN.

These filings mark the latest step by the Trump administration to clear those involved in the 2021 attack, largely made up of his supporters who stormed the US Capitol in an effort to overturn former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Trump critics say that they did so at his encouragement.

Following the attack during the final days of Trump’s first term, the Justice Department and FBI launched a nationwide effort to identify and arrest those involved, which quickly became the largest criminal investigation in US history.

Prosecutors charged more than 1,580 people and obtained around 1,270 convictions.

Trump granted mass pardons to over 1,000 individuals convicted for their involvement in the Capitol riots, including ones who admitted to carrying out violent offenses.

After being pardoned by Trump over the 2021 riot, dozens of individuals went on to be arrested for new alleged crimes, including sexual abuse of minors, battery assault, theft, property damage, and threatening to kill Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader.

"They think they're untouchable," Congressman Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who served on the House committee that investigated the 2021 attack, said in March.

Trump's pardons, he told public outlet NPR, "definitely have made Americans less safe."

On the case of a pardoned rioter who was later sentenced to life for repeatedly sexually molesting two middle school-age children, Raskin said: "It was only because Donald Trump let him out of prison that he was able to go and to continue his sickening pattern of child sexual abuse. What is the president's response to that? Does he take responsibility for what's happened?"