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Background: FILE – In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo violent rioters, loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol in Washington (AP Photo/John Minchillo); Insets L-R: Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes after being released from a jail in Maryland, in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana); FILE – Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio rallies in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 17, 2019 (AP Photo/Noah Berger).
The Washington, D.C., Attorney General’s Office has moved to dismiss — with prejudice — a civil lawsuit against two far-right extremist groups and several other individuals for their participation in the Jan. 6, attack on the Capitol following “long delays” in the case, telling the court that the government no longer believes the case is worth pursuing.
“The Attorney General has determined that, notwithstanding the virtue and propriety of this case, the District’s limited law enforcement resources must now be committed elsewhere in the service of District residents, taking into account both the growing challenges the District faces and the relatively small recoveries the District stands to obtain on its remaining common law causes of action,” the OAG’s office wrote in the five-page filing explaining its decision to drop the suit against Proud Boys International, LLC and the Oath Keepers.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the civil complaint was initially filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington in December 2021 and sought millions of dollars in damages from the groups.
Proceedings were held up as many of the defendants were among the thousands of people prosecuted and convicted for their involvement in the Capitol riot. Among the most notable defendants were Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, both of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Rhodes was serving 18 years in federal prison before his sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump in January, while Tarrio had been sentenced to 22 years and was given a full and complete pardon by the president.
The onetime highly anticipated lawsuit was announced with gusto by then-Attorney General Karl Racine, who likened the conservative, pro-Trump mob’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election to the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001.
“A very different but familiar enemy, inflamed by a sitting president and other elected officials, wearing military fatigues and red, white and blue,” attacked the national seat of legislative government on Jan. 6, Racine said. “It was like 9/11 — a planned terrorist attack, but this time, our own citizens were hellbent on destroying the freedoms and ideals on which our country was founded, and continues to aspire to achieve.”
Calling the incident “gutless” and traumatizing for members of law enforcement, Racine said the taxed-without-representation federal district had “chosen to speak truth through this lawsuit” by targeting the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
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The suit was premised on the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. It also employs another closely related federal law that increases liability for violations of the act and several common law tort claims.
“[T]he Individual Defendants conspired together and participated in planning, promoting, financing, organizing, and carrying out the January 6th Attack,” the filing reads. “Defendants Proud Boys and Oath Keepers also participated in the conspiracy, playing a key role in the planning, promotion, financing, organizing, and carrying out of the January 6th Attack by lending their experience — and in some cases, organizational resources — to the planned January 6th Attack.”
