WA Proud Boy Ethan Nordean has 18-year sentence commuted by Trump

On President Donald Trump’s first day of his second term in office, he issued pardons or commuted sentences for more than 1,500 defendants around the country who were criminally charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Thirty-three Washingtonians had been charged for entering the Capitol, destroying property, or attacking police, according to reporting by NPR. In a proclamation Monday, Trump mentioned one of them by name: Ethan Nordean.

Nordean, who grew up in Auburn, was a leader of Seattle’s Proud Boys chapter, according to court records. Social media posts show he and other members of the far-right group planned to overwhelm police barricades during the Capitol attack.

In 2023, a federal jury in D.C. convicted Nordean and three other Proud Boys of seditious conspiracy. Nordean was later sentenced to 18 years in federal prison, one of the longest sentences of any Capitol rioter.

Nordean is one of 14 defendants from across the U.S. whose sentences President Trump commuted to time served.

Trump's executive order did not specifically mention Washington state's 32 other Jan. 6 defendants.

Pierce County men Richard Slaughter and Caden Paul Gottfried, who were tried in D.C. earlier this month, have not yet been sentenced. Reached for comment Monday, their lawyer, William Shipley, told KUOW he expects their charges to be dismissed.