In December 2021, then-D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine filed a lawsuit against both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers under the Ku Klux Klan Act, seeking steep financial penalties and claiming the two organizations were responsible for the violence at the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
“The images of that shameful and contemptible day can never be erased,” Racine said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “It was like 9/11, a planned terrorist attack, but this time, our own citizens were hell bent on destroying the freedoms and ideals on which our country was founded, and continues to aspire to achieve.”
In early March, the DC Attorney General’s Office had motioned to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice, citing that “the District’s limited law enforcement resources must now be committed elsewhere in the service of District residents.”
