What is the legal basis for vacating seditious conspiracy convictions for individuals involved in the January 6th incident?

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The legal basis is the Justice Department’s prosecutorial discretion to seek dismissal of a criminal case when it says doing so is in the interests of justice. In the January 6 seditious conspiracy cases, the department asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to vacate the convictions so the indictments could then be permanently dismissed. In its filings, the government argued that this follows an established practice: when the executive branch decides it no longer wants to pursue a prosecution, it can ask an appellate court to wipe out the judgment as a procedural step toward ending the case. The department said this approach is consistent with motions the government has made in other cases, including requests to the Supreme Court to vacate convictions after deciding that continued prosecution is not warranted. Its stated rationale was not that the underlying statute had been ruled invalid, or that the trial evidence was legally insufficient, but that dismissal was appropriate under the government’s view of justice and enforcement priorities. That is an important distinction. A vacatur on this basis does not necessarily mean a court found the original convictions legally wrong on the merits. Rather, it reflects the government’s request to undo the convictions so it can terminate the prosecutions altogether. Whether to grant that request remains a judicial decision, but the legal theory advanced by the department is prosecutorial discretion exercised in the inte…

Todd Blanche Axes $1.8 Billion Fund for Trump Allies as Trump Nominates Him Attorney General

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Todd Blanche Axes $1.8 Billion Fund for Trump Allies as Trump Nominates Him Attorney General

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