Rhodes was among the 1,500 January 6th defendants granted clemency by Donald Trump in one of his initial acts upon returning to the White House on Monday. Serving an 18-year sentence for seditious conspiracy, Rhodes’ sentence was commuted to time served.

The move, in effect, validated the far-right leader’s defiant claim that his criminal prosecution was a kind of political persecution.

Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, and Enrique Tarrio, former leader of the Proud Boys, have been released from prison after their lengthy sentences for seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.