标签： North America

OTTAWA, April 15 — Just 24 hours after Canada’s governing Liberal Party claimed victory in three federal by-elections, Prime Minister Mark Carney stood alongside Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne on Parliament Hill to confirm a long-awaited shift in parliamentary control. The three new seats have pushed the Liberals to a total of 174 seats in the House of Commons, granting the party an outright majority and reshaping the country’s legislative landscape — even as political analysts warn that this new domestic political capital is unlikely to shift Canada’s negotiating hand in stalled trade talks with the United States.

For months, the Liberals have operated as a minority government following the 2025 general election, but party leaders have long governed as if they held a majority already, according to Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto. Wiseman explained that the practical policy impact of the new majority will be limited, in large part because opposition parties have had no motivation to force a snap election. Canadian voters overwhelmingly reject early elections, he noted, and any party that moves to bring down the current government would face serious electoral backlash. That status quo has left the Carney administration’s policy positions largely unchanged even before the by-election results.

The most significant changes from the majority win will be procedural, centered on Parliament’s committee system, which has long been controlled by opposition parties during the minority government period. Opposition-led committees have frequently used their power to slow the progress of government legislation, but a Liberal majority on all committees will remove that key check. “With Liberal control of the committees, legislation will pass much more quickly,” Wiseman told China Daily in an interview.

While the domestic political shift clears legislative logjams at home, it does little to resolve ongoing tensions in Canada-US trade negotiations, where talks over the modernization of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) have hit a stalement. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has already publicly stated that he does not expect negotiations to conclude by the July 1 deadline, a signal of how far apart the two sides remain.

Political observers argue that the Liberals’ new majority will not move the needle in these closed-door negotiations. “I doubt that having a majority government would make a difference in negotiations, which are largely done behind the scenes, and not visible to the public,” said Ronald Stagg, a history professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. Stagg noted that Carney’s approach to trade talks will be shaped far more by his decades of professional experience in business and global finance than by the number of seats his party holds in Parliament. “With his business background Carney will work for the best deal possible,” Stagg said.

That said, the majority does offer key domestic political protection for the Carney administration regardless of how the negotiations conclude. If the government makes concessions to reach a deal, a solid parliamentary majority will insulate it from domestic political backlash. “Having a majority would protect the government from any adverse reaction in Canada to the outcome,” Stagg explained. Even so, he emphasized, stronger domestic standing does not automatically translate to greater leverage against Washington. The Trump administration is unlikely to adjust its negotiating position based on Canada’s domestic political makeup, he argued: “Donald Trump and his negotiating team are not going to say that the Canadian government has to give in because it does not represent all Canadians, i.e. is weak. The Carney government will negotiate in the belief that it has the backing of Canadians.”

Beyond the immediate negotiations, the by-election win confirms a long-running strategic shift for Canada: Ottawa will continue to deepen trade and diplomatic ties with partners in Europe and Asia, moving to diversify its economic partnerships beyond its traditional dependence on the US market. This shift is not tied to the current Trump administration alone, Stagg noted; even after Trump leaves office, Canada can no longer take its historically close US relationship for granted.

This push for diversification aligns with a broader global trend among middle powers, which are increasingly seeking to build alternative partnerships to reduce overreliance on the United States. “Other nations which would be considered middle powers are also anxious to establish relationships that do not depend on the United States,” Stagg said.

The current stalled talks underscore just how fraught Canada-US trade relations have become. Stagg pointed out that the US has made far more progress in negotiations with Mexico than with Canada, and it remains unclear whether this gap is part of a deliberate “divide and conquer” strategy or simply a sequencing of talks. Trump has openly taken a hard line with Canada, claiming the US needs nothing from Canada as a bargaining tactic and demanding that Ottawa roll back its long-standing supply management system for agricultural products — a demand that has created significant strain. “He has not taken a similar position with Mexico, so, definitely, trade relations with the United States are not going to well,” Stagg added.

For years, tensions have simmered between former President Donald Trump and senior leaders of the Catholic Church, rooted in his hardline immigration stances that have long drawn condemnation from church officials. This divide has already split the U.S. Catholic hierarchy from right-leaning rank-and-file believers for months. But over the past 48 hours, a new and unprecedented backlash has erupted, triggered by Trump’s blistering public attack on Pope Leo and his sharing of an AI-generated image depicting Trump as a Christ-like figure. What makes this moment remarkable is that the harshest criticism is coming not from liberal opponents, but from Trump’s once-loyal conservative Catholic allies. Their discontent stretches far beyond the public spat with the pope: it is rooted in deep moral opposition to the six-week-old Iran war, a conflict that has crystallized a quiet but dramatic shift in opinion among conservative Catholic supporters of the president. One of the most striking breaks comes from Bishop Joseph Strickland, a long-time stalwart Trump backer who has repeatedly aligned himself with the president’s political movement. Just last year, Strickland took part in a prayer service to “consecrate” Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate; in 2024, he delivered the keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) where Trump was the guest of honor, and in 2020, he spoke at a rally of Trump supporters pushing to overturn the presidential election results. His unwavering public support for Trump, and his open clashes with the late Pope Francis, even contributed to his removal from his post as Bishop of Tyler, Texas. Now, facing conflicting stances from the White House and the Vatican on the Iran war and broader Middle East instability, Strickland has broken ranks with the administration in a rare public rebuke. “I do not believe this conflict meets the criteria of a just war. I stand with the Holy Father and his call for peace. This is not about politics. It’s about moral truth,” Strickland told the BBC, noting that the massive scale of death and suffering inflicted on innocent Iranian civilians rules out any framing of the war as just. He has gone further, challenging the White House’s handling of the conflict and urging other Catholics to join him in speaking out. “It becomes very dark when religion is used to justify immoral behaviour… using religion to justify especially dropping bombs is contradicting what the faith is about,” he said. When asked about Trump’s attack on Pope Leo and the controversial AI-generated image—dubbed “AI Jesus” by observers, which Trump claims he believed depicted a doctor, not Jesus—Strickland said it was his moral duty to remind the president of a core passage from the Gospel of Matthew, which teaches that ultimate authority belongs to Christ, not any human leader. “When world leaders forget this truth, all are in peril,” he added. This shifting alignment among conservative Catholics carries notable political risk for Trump, who grew his support among this demographic during the 2024 presidential election. Pew Research Center data paints a complex picture of Catholic voting patterns: racial identity played a major role, with 62% of white Catholic voters supporting Trump, compared to 37% backing Kamala Harris, while 41% of Hispanic Catholics supported Trump and 58% backed Harris. Overall, the data shows a gradual shift toward the Republican Party among U.S. Catholics as a whole, but deep, persistent divides remain. Greg Smith, senior associate director of religion research at Pew, notes that historically, for most U.S. Catholics, political identity often outweighs religious affiliation when shaping public outlook, with voters splitting sharply along party lines. U.S. Catholics have long been polarized on divisive cultural issues such as abortion and immigration, making a rare cross-ideological convergence between left and right Catholic leaders on the Iran war all the more unusual. Pew polling also reflects this new dynamic: while the late Pope Francis was far more popular among Catholic Democrats than Republicans, Pope Leo currently holds high approval among Catholics on both sides of the political aisle. Unlike Francis, a progressive who often alienated traditionalists through measures such as restrictions on the Latin Mass (moves Pope Leo has since reversed), Leo has built broad goodwill across factions. Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut and a leading voice of U.S. Catholic conservatism, argues that the pope is not immune to fair criticism. “The Pope is the Pope, we owe him a certain amount of deference, but I don’t think that Catholicism wants the obedience of cadavers. We are living, thinking persons,” he said. Wolfgang, who shifted from a cautious pragmatic supporter of Trump to an enthusiastic backer focused on overturning abortion rights and defending hardline mass deportation policies aligned with the Catholic nationalism of figures like JD Vance, is now sharply critical of Trump’s treatment of Pope Leo. “President Trump does not understand how Catholicism works. The Pope is not merely a head of state, he is the Vicar of Christ. Attacks on him are received as attacks on the Church itself. The more he attacks the Pope the more his support will drop among his Catholic voters,” Wolfgang told the BBC. Wolfgang notes that when Catholic bishops criticized Trump’s immigration policies, his faith led him to push back against those bishops—but that same faith now compels him to oppose the Iran war. “When President Trump is out there talking about ending Iranian civilisation, or Secretary Hegseth is out there making some bloodthirsty prayer that is unrecognizable to Catholics, then it’s completely natural for conservative Catholics to line up behind Pope Leo,” he said. His reference is to a controversial prayer delivered by U.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth at a Pentagon worship service shortly after the first U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, in which he called for “overwhelming violence” and “justice executed swiftly and without remorse.” While Wolfgang typically directs his sharpest criticism at the Catholic left, he acknowledges that the Iran issue has partially unified opposing factions, driven largely by the clear, uncompromising anti-war messaging from Pope Leo. In an unprecedented show of cross-faction opposition, no senior U.S. Catholic clergy has publicly come out in support of the Iran war. Even Robert Barron, Bishop of Winona-Rochester and a long-time Trump ally, joined the criticism, demanding that Trump apologize to Pope Leo for his angry verbal attack—a demand Trump has rejected. Steven Greydanus, a deacon and prominent commentator on the liberal wing of the U.S. Catholic Church, also notes this unusual convergence of opinion. Greydanus argues that one key factor driving the backlash is the White House’s twisting of the long-held theological principle of Just War Theory, which outlines strict moral criteria for when a war is justified and how it must be conducted. He also attributes the unified opposition to the stark contrast between Trump’s aggressive rhetoric and Pope Leo’s calm, healing public posture. “While I am grieved by the directness of Donald Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo, in a way I welcome the clarity of the choice Catholics are being presented with,” Greydanus said. Vatican officials have pushed back against framing the conflict as a personal rivalry between Pope Leo and Trump, emphasizing that the pope is drawing on his faith to oppose the logic of war itself. When Trump warned that “a whole civilisation would die” in Iran, however, Pope Leo responded directly, calling the threat “truly unacceptable.” “There is an important difference between challenging a man and challenging the principle that makes war possible,” said Reverend Antonio Spadaro SJ, Undersecretary for the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education. Speaking to the BBC, Spadaro explained that while quiet dialogue continues behind the scenes in centers of global power, the pope felt compelled to make public statements against the conflict to “mark the moral limit” of what is acceptable morally. When asked about the unprecedented cross-faction unity among U.S. Catholics backing Pope Leo’s anti-war stance, Spadaro acknowledged that the pope does not unify all Catholics, but that he has succeeded in moving the broader Catholic debate beyond rigid partisan lines. Political analysts remain puzzled by Trump’s decision to share the AI-generated image, which was always certain to alienate a key bloc of his supporters. In an unusual move, Trump eventually backed down and removed the post from his social media. Questions also persist about the motivation behind his public tirade against Pope Leo, with many observers arguing it was an attempt to weaken and delegitimize the pope’s strong anti-war opposition. But as Spadaro points out, Trump’s attack implicitly confirms the power of the pope’s moral voice. “If Leo were irrelevant, he would not deserve a word. Instead, he is invoked, named, opposed—a sign that his words matter,” Spadaro said. Many ordinary American Catholics have echoed the call for unity around moral principles, with one common refrain echoing Bishop Strickland’s opening prayer: “I pray they come together” around the shared values of peace and respect for the teachings of the faith.

In an exclusive interview with Sky News on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump opened up about mounting tensions between the United States and the United Kingdom, hinting that the bilateral trade agreement reached between the two nations could be revised in the near future. The comments come after weeks of sustained criticism directed at UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who drew Trump’s backlash after refusing to join the U.S.-led military coalition against Iran alongside Israel back in late February.

When asked to assess the current state of the decades-long “special relationship” between the two allies, Trump’s response highlighted the depth of the current rift. After an initial clarifying question from the reporter, the president struck a blunt tone: “It’s the relationship where when we asked them for help, they were not there. When we needed them, they were not there. When we didn’t need them, they were not there. And they still aren’t there.”

Elaborating on the state of ties, Trump added that the relationship “has been better, but it’s sad.” He emphasized that the trade deal the U.S. extended to the UK was far more favorable than required, noting that “we gave them a good trade deal, better than I had to, which can always be changed.”

The current trade framework dates back to May of last year, when the UK became the first nation to secure a new tariff agreement with Trump following his return to the Oval Office. The deal cut import duties on key goods including automobiles, steel, and aluminium, marking a key post-Brexit economic win for the UK government.

Even as he criticized Starmer’s foreign policy choices, Trump clarified that the diplomatic tensions would not overshadow King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s upcoming state visit to the United States, scheduled for late April. The president said he has a long-standing positive relationship with the British monarch, noting that Charles is not involved in partisan political disputes between the two governments.

“I’ve known the King for a long time, and he’s not involved in that process,” Trump explained. When asked what he anticipates most from the visit, he added: “Just being with him. I’ve known him for a long time. He’s wonderful.”

Beyond disagreements over the Middle East conflict, Trump also touched on domestic policy, acknowledging that he holds personal affection for Starmer but slamming the UK government’s current immigration and energy frameworks as “insane.” For weeks, Trump has publicly attacked Starmer’s refusal to back the U.S.-Israel campaign against Iran, even drawing a comparison to Britain’s iconic World War II leader earlier this month by dismissing Starmer as “no Winston Churchill.”

WASHINGTON — In a seismic shakeup that has thrown Capitol Hill into unprecedented chaos and drawn bipartisan condemnation, two sitting U.S. House of Representatives members submitted their resignations Monday, as two additional lawmakers face mounting pressure and the growing threat of rare expulsion votes over a cascade of overlapping personal and ethical scandals.

The first departure came from Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell of California, who announced his resignation in a post on the social platform X Monday morning. Swalwell, who had already dropped out of the 2026 California gubernatorial race, stepped down days after multiple women came forward with public allegations of sexual assault and professional misconduct.

Just hours after Swalwell’s announcement, Republican Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas revealed he would leave office immediately rather than finish his current term. Gonzales’s decision comes after he confirmed he had engaged in an extramarital affair with a former congressional aide who later died by suicide. Top House Republican leadership, including Speaker Mike Johnson, had already privately and publicly pressured Gonzales to abandon his reelection bid, and growing calls for his resignation left him with no path to remain in office.

The resignations have set off a broader reckoning in the chamber, where lawmakers are already preparing disciplinary action against two additional Florida-based House members: Democratic Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and Republican Representative Cory Mills, who are each facing separate unconnected ethical controversies that have eroded cross-party support for their continued service.

New York Democratic Representative Nydia Velazquez, who has led the cross-party push for accountability, voiced the widespread sentiment of anger among rank-and-file lawmakers in a social media post Monday. “Congress should not tolerate representatives who abuse staff, betray public trust for personal gain, and generally violate their oath of office,” she wrote, adding that all four scandal-tarred lawmakers should step down voluntarily, and face expulsion if they refuse to leave.

Expulsion from the House is one of the harshest disciplinary actions the chamber can impose, requiring a two-thirds majority vote to pass. The threshold is so high that in the 237-year history of the House, Congress has only removed six sitting members via expulsion, reserving the penalty only for the most severe violations of public trust.

Swalwell’s scandal moved at a breakneck pace over the weekend, after major U.S. outlets the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN published detailed reporting outlining allegations from four separate women. One accuser, a former member of Swalwell’s congressional staff, told reporters he sexually assaulted her twice on occasions when she was too intoxicated to give legal consent.

Swalwell has pushed back against the most serious allegations, insisting all claims of sexual assault are completely false. He has, however, apologized publicly for what he describes as “mistakes in judgment” made during his time in office. “I will fight the serious, false allegation made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make,” Swalwell said in a statement announcing his resignation.

Even after Swalwell suspended his gubernatorial campaign, the backlash against him continued to build, with lawmakers from both major parties calling for him to leave Congress immediately. A scheduled expulsion resolution from Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna had been set for a vote Tuesday, and cross-party support for expulsion votes for all four implicated lawmakers has already been confirmed by lawmakers across the ideological spectrum.

The cascading scandals have created an unprecedented moment for the narrow divided House, where a series of vacancies and leadership fights have already slowed legislative work for months. The upcoming expulsion votes, which would be among only a handful in U.S. history, mark one of the most broad-ranging ethical purges in modern congressional history.

Following a series of landmark high-level exchanges between China and Canada, Canadian policy and academic experts say Ottawa is moving toward a distinctly pragmatic approach to resetting its strained bilateral relationship with Beijing, after years of diplomatic friction.

The turning point traces back to the January meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, a gathering that former senior Global Affairs Canada official Jeff Mahon described as laying the groundwork for a “positive upward trajectory” in Canada-China relations.

Mahon, who previously served as deputy director of Global Affairs Canada’s China division, noted that both governments have already taken tangible, good-faith steps to advance cooperation. Most notably, the two sides have moved forward with commitments outlined in a preliminary agreement-in-principle, launching measures to roll back some of the restrictive trade barriers that have hampered bilateral commerce for years.

“While more work remains to be done in order to deepen and expand collaboration, these initial steps highlight the good-faith approach adopted by the two leaders,” Mahon told China Daily in an interview.

The most recent concrete demonstration of Ottawa’s outreach came with an official visit to Beijing by Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, a trip that experts frame as a direct follow-through on the January summit outcomes. To expand structured, institutional cooperation, Mahon explained that both countries are advancing joint initiatives aligned with a pre-agreed bilateral road map, and have formally agreed to establish a new financial working group. This new body will create dedicated channels for regulatory and policy officials to deepen collaboration across Canada’s competitive financial services sector, opening new doors for private sector engagement on both sides.

More frequent high-level dialogue has also emerged as a core pillar of the improved relationship, creating space for candid, constructive exchanges on thorny sensitive issues while creating momentum for expanded collaborative work, Mahon added. This shift, he noted, reflects a deliberate broader policy reorientation by the Canadian federal government in Ottawa.

Even as ties warm, both sides will need to manage existing differences with deliberate care, experts emphasize. Resolving long-running trade frictions remains a critical priority: this includes forging durable solutions to persistent trade irritants, particularly in the agricultural sector, and negotiating expanded mutual market access that benefits producers and businesses on both sides. Against a backdrop of widespread global economic uncertainty, sustaining this stable, constructive trajectory is essential for both economies, Mahon added.

Jiang Wenran, founding director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, explained that since Carney took office, Ottawa has made a deliberate push to rebuild closer bilateral ties and move past the diplomatic standoffs that defined Canada-China relations in previous years. This policy shift, Jiang noted, has earned broad support from most Canadian provincial premiers, the national business community, and a growing share of the Canadian public, though it still faces scattered political opposition. Security-focused policy debates remain one of the most prominent constraints on deeper bilateral engagement, he added.

Ottawa has formally moved forward with what it frames as a “new strategic partnership” with Beijing, and has begun implementing all agreements reached at the leaders’ summit, Jiang said. Early areas of expanding cooperation include electric vehicle supply chains, cross-border energy trade, and financial sector collaboration.

Against that backdrop, Champagne’s Beijing visit — which included a large delegation of Canadian business leaders — stands as a tangible step toward turning summit consensus into actionable cooperation. The trip also highlights Ottawa’s commitment to deepening financial sector collaboration, a field where Canadian financial institutions have long-standing global expertise and competitive advantages. Beyond bilateral ties, Jiang noted that the visit also fits into Canada’s broader strategy to diversify its international economic partnerships, reducing overreliance on a single trade partner.

A key sign of deepening institutional engagement, Jiang added, is the planned launch of a new bilateral policy forum: the China-Canada Economic and Financial Strategic Dialogue, scheduled to convene in the second half of 2026.

Jiang explained that Canada’s current approach aligns with what Prime Minister Carney has described as an independent “third path” in foreign policy. A sustainable, durable China policy requires Canada to pursue an independent diplomatic course, he noted — one that does not automatically align with the United States’ strategic containment approach toward China.

Fresh diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Iran are on the cusp of resuming this week in Pakistan, with US Vice President JD Vance confirming he will spearhead the push for a sweeping, comprehensive ‘grand bargain’ between the two long-adversarial nations. Vance laid out the administration’s negotiating goals during a public event hosted in Athens, Georgia, at the University of Georgia on April 14, 2026, just days after he led an initial 21-hour closed-door negotiating session with Iranian delegates in Pakistan over the weekend.

Decades of deep-rooted mistrust have separated Washington and Tehran, but Vance stressed that all stakeholders at the upcoming talks in Islamabad are aligned in their goal of reaching a viable final agreement. He emphasized that US President Donald Trump has rejected incremental, small-scale agreements in favor of a far-reaching deal that enshrines one non-negotiable core US priority: preventing Iran from developing an operational nuclear weapon.

According to a Tuesday CNN report citing anonymous sources close to the planning process, Vance will not be the only senior US representative at the potential second round of talks. He will be joined by two other high-profile members of the US negotiating team: Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, and the president’s son-in-law and former senior White House advisor Jared Kushner. While Trump confirmed the likelihood of new negotiations in the coming days, a senior anonymous US official clarified that no formal agenda or timeline has been finalized for the follow-up meeting, noting that logistical plans are still under active discussion.

Speaking in a phone interview with The New York Post earlier on Tuesday, Trump confirmed that the next round of talks could get underway within 48 hours in Pakistan. “Something could be happening over the next two days, and we’re more inclined to go there,” the president told the outlet.

On Monday, Trump publicly identified the core sticking point in the initial round of negotiations: Iran’s nuclear program. He added that retrieving Iran’s existing stockpiles of enriched uranium is a top US priority for the talks. Initial proposals presented in the first session highlight the gap between the two sides’ positions, The New York Times reported Monday. Washington has tabled a proposal calling for a 20-year pause on all of Iran’s sensitive nuclear activities, while Tehran has countered with an offer to suspend its nuclear program for a maximum of five years.

The potential for a major breakthrough in US-Iran relations comes after more than 40 years of severed formal diplomatic ties, making these talks one of the most significant diplomatic overtures between the two nations in modern history. The outcome of the negotiations could have far-reaching implications for regional security in the Middle East and global non-proliferation efforts.

WASHINGTON, April 15 (Xinhua) – In a recent interview with FOX News on Tuesday, former and current U.S. President Donald Trump made a striking announcement regarding the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran, stating that the war is “very close” to being completed. The comment comes amid long-standing geopolitical tensions between Washington and Tehran that have escalated into open military conflict in recent years, drawing global concern over regional stability and energy market disruptions across the Asia-Pacific and beyond. While Trump did not elaborate on specific timelines or terms for a potential end to the conflict, his remark has sparked immediate analysis from international policy circles over what a nearing conclusion to the conflict could mean for global geopolitics, energy security, and diplomatic relations across the Middle East. This development arrives alongside a raft of other shifting global political dynamics, from changing regional policy approaches in Southeast Asia to debates over multipolar global governance that are reshaping international order.

In a major legal shift aligned with former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign pledges, the U.S. Department of Justice has formally requested a federal appeals court to dismiss the seditious conspiracy convictions of 12 individuals connected to the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.

When Trump took office for his second term, he moved quickly to grant clemency to hundreds of people charged or convicted over their roles in the insurrection, issuing full pardons or sentence commutations to more than 1,500 individuals on his first day in office. Though Trump issued over 1,000 full pardons to January 6 rioters, he opted only to commute the sentences of the 12 rioters—most of whom are affiliated with the far-right militia groups the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. This commutation allowed the defendants to secure early release from prison, but left their felony convictions intact on their official criminal records.

In a court filing submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia stated that “The United States has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.”

Among the 12 individuals seeking full expungement of their convictions is Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers militia. A former U.S. Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer, Rhodes led a contingent of Oath Keepers members to Washington, D.C., on the day of the riot, where the group plotted to disrupt Congress’s formal certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump. Prosecutors proved during Rhodes’ 2023 trial that the group stored weapons in a Virginia hotel room across the Potomac River, and that while Rhodes never entered the Capitol building himself, he directed his followers’ actions from outside the building during the melee. He was originally sentenced to 18 years in federal prison after a jury found him guilty of seditious conspiracy, the charge of attempting to overthrow the lawful U.S. government. The D.C. Circuit has set an April 17 deadline for all parties to submit formal filings in the expungement cases. If the court grants the DOJ’s request to throw out the convictions, it will eliminate the need for the Trump administration’s DOJ to defend the original convictions in ongoing expungement proceedings.

Notably, former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique “Henry” Tarrio, who was also convicted of seditious conspiracy over his role in organizing the riot and was originally sentenced to 22 years in prison, received a full pardon from Trump rather than a commutation, so he is not included in this latest request.

A successful ruling dismissing the convictions would mark a key symbolic victory for Trump, who centered a major campaign promise on supporting and pardoning rioters who participated in the insurrection aimed at overturning his 2020 election loss.