And now, the real story. The current federal government didn't say anything about protecting the public when they requested a Court to let J6 defendants loose.

Courthouse, Washington, D.C. (E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse.jpg) (Wikimedia Commons)

Judge Beryl Howell is a United States District Judge in the District of Columbia. She presided over so many trials, convictions, and guilty pleas of January 6 insurrectionists that she could probably spit if conducting yourself with decency was not so important to her.

Since the already convicted J6 defendants all received their pardons or commutations on Monday, Judge Howell dealt on Wednesday with the current federal government's motion to dismiss all pending indictments and erase any pending J6 defendants' pleas of guilty as charged, but who had not yet been adjudicated.

The current federal government asked that all these proceedings be dismissed as if they never happened and for an order that they cannot be refiled. Although the federal government was supposed to present facts to support what they asked, they did not; the purpose of submitting their reasons and the underlying facts behind those reasons is for a Court to be able to say that the government's request to dismiss criminal charges sufficiently protects the public.

To say again, the current federal government did not do that. They did not say anything about how the facts showed that the public would be protected once the J6 defendants were let loose again.

Two things stand out from this. The first thing is that the aptitude of lawyers working for the current federal government is on full display here. They are no longer the people behind the curtain like the Wizard of Oz. We see them, who they are, and what they do.

The second thing is Judge Howell's written opinion for her ruling granting the government's motion to dismiss the indictments, which she had no power to deny, and denying the part of the government's request which she could deny. She denied the government's request to dismiss the pending indictments as though they had never been filed; she dismissed them instead without prejudice to future criminal proceedings.

Here is what Judge Howell wrote in cases involving pending indictments of people who had done things like climb scaffolding so that they could attack people, intentionally trespassed into the U.S. Capitol to disrupt Congress from counting the electoral votes, and assaulting police officers with chemical spray and a 4-by-4. What she wrote may be longer than most people are used to reading.

But if you have read this far, it will be worth your while to read on. This is what Judge Beryl Howell wrote when a nation needed a reminder of the context for the criminal enterprise that has come to be known simply as "January 6":

Here, the government's cursory motion provides no factual basis for dismissal. Instead, the single paragraph explanation included in the one-page dismissal motion cites “as the reason for this dismissal,” only a presidential proclamation “dated January 20, 2025, Granting Pardons and Commutation of Sentences for Certain Offenses Relating to the Events at Or Near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” Govt's MTD at 1. This cited proclamation, inter alia, directs the Attorney General “to pursue [the] dismissal with prejudice to the government of all pending indictments against individuals for their conduct related to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” See PROCLAMATION, (Jan. 20, 2025) (capitalization in original), available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/granting-pardons-and-commutation-of-sentences-for-certain-offenses-relating-to-the-events-at-or-near-the-united-states-capitol-on-january-6-2021/. The only reason provided for this instruction, as set out in the Proclamation's introduction, is the assertion that this action “ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation.” Id.

No “national injustice” occurred here, just as no outcome-determinative election fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election. No “process of national reconciliation” can begin when sore losers, whose preferred candidate loses an election, are glorified for disrupting a constitutionally mandated proceeding in Congress and doing so with impunity. That merely raises the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other sore losers and undermines the rule of law. Yet, this presidential pronouncement of a “national injustice” is the sole justification provided in the government's motion to dismiss the pending indictment. See Govt's MTD.

Having presided over scores of criminal cases charging defendants for their criminal conduct both outside and inside the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, which charges were fully supported by evidence in the form of extensive videotapes and photographs, admissions by defendants in the course of plea hearings and in testimony at trials, and the testimony of law enforcement officers and congressional staff present at the Capitol on that day, this Court cannot let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement. The prosecutions in this case and others charging defendants for their criminal conduct at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, present no injustice, but instead reflect the diligent work of conscientious public servants, including prosecutors and law enforcement officials, and dedicated defense attorneys, to defend our democracy and rights and preserve our long tradition of peaceful transfers of power—which, until January 6, 2021, served as a model to the world—all while affording those charged every protection guaranteed by our Constitution and the criminal justice system. Bluntly put, the assertion offered in the presidential pronouncement for the pending motion to dismiss is flatly wrong.

(Italics by Judge Howell in this quotation; I added the boldface for emphasis.)

That was the real story. This judge refused to allow it to be sent down the memory hole, or to allow the real story to be replaced with a "flatly wrong" presidential pronouncement.

Those who have eyes to see with, and ears to hear with, let them see and hear.

And let us remember what really transpired here.