Which January 6 defendants were convicted of seditious conspiracy, and what sentences were handed down before clemency?
Executive summary
The government secured seditious-conspiracy convictions against leaders of both the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys; several of those defendants received multi‑year prison terms before a blanket clemency order from President Trump in January 2025 wiped out those federal punishments [1] [2] [3] [4]. Public records and Justice Department announcements establish which named defendants were convicted and identify the sentences the reporting records; other trial convictions exist but the sources provided do not list every penalty in detail [5] [6].
1. Who was convicted of seditious conspiracy: the headline names
The most prominent seditious‑conspiracy convictions came in two clusters: leaders of the Oath Keepers, including founder Stewart Rhodes and multiple chapter leaders and associates, and leaders of the Proud Boys, where a jury found four senior members guilty — Enrique “Henry” Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl — of seditious conspiracy and related counts [2] [1] [7]. Department of Justice statements and mainstream outlets reported that both organizations’ leadership convictions were the government’s highest‑profile successes in proving an organized plot to stop the peaceful transfer of power [1] [7].
2. Sentences imposed before clemency: the confirmed terms
Reporting records list several specific terms: Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes received an 18‑year sentence; Kelly Meggs, a Florida Oath Keepers leader, was sentenced to 12 years; Jessica Watkins received eight years and six months; and Kenneth Harrelson received four years — all for seditious conspiracy and related counts in cases described by the DOJ and media [2] [7]. For the Proud Boys leaders, Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years for convictions that included seditious conspiracy, while public reporting and DOJ releases confirm that Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean and Zachary Rehl were convicted though the provided excerpts do not list each individual’s sentence in full [3] [1] [8]. Where a specific sentence for a convicted defendant is not listed in the supplied sources, that absence is acknowledged rather than filled in from outside reporting [1].
3. How many people faced the charge and the conviction rate reported
The federal effort charged an unusually large number of people with a Civil War–era seditious‑conspiracy statute: sources indicate roughly 18 individuals at various points faced that charge, with reporting saying about ten were convicted at trial and others pleading guilty or acquitted on that specific count [5] [6]. The Department of Justice and news outlets framed the convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders as the narrow subset of cases that proved organized conspiracy beyond individual criminal acts on the Capitol grounds [1] [7].
4. Clemency: what changed on January 20–21, 2025
On his first day back in office, President Trump issued a sweeping clemency order that pardoned or commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 people charged in connection with January 6, 2021, and specifically commuted the sentences of those still imprisoned to time served as of January 20, 2025; that action led to the immediate release of high‑profile seditious‑conspiracy convicts such as Stewart Rhodes and Enrique Tarrio [4] [3] [9] [10]. The White House statement directed the Justice Department to effectuate certificates of pardon and to pursue dismissal of pending indictments, dramatically altering the federal legal consequences reported up to that moment [4].
5. Political and legal implications recorded in the sources
News organizations and watchdogs noted that the clemency order upended the Justice Department’s largest prosecution and raised concerns among counterterrorism researchers about precedent and deterrence, while conservative supporters cast the action as correcting prosecutorial overreach against peaceful protesters [3] [10]. Watchdog reporting also flagged that some pardoned individuals later faced other state or federal charges, underscoring that clemency removed federal accountability but did not erase public records or the potential for unrelated prosecutions — a point the available sources document in follow‑on reporting [11].