1/ The leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia was sentenced to 18 years in prison for orchestrating a seditious conspiracy on Jan. 6 to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election – the longest sentence imposed on a Jan. 6 defendant to date. A jury convicted Stewart Rhodes last November of seditious conspiracy for plotting to forcefully disrupt the transfer of power after the 2020 election. “You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country, to the republic and to the very fabric of our democracy,” Judge Amit Mehta told Rhodes, adding: “For years, its clear that you have wanted the democracy in this country to devolve into violence and you have thought that violence is an acceptable means of accomplishing your ends.” Americans will “now hold our collective breaths every time an election is approaching,” Mehta concluded. A second Oath Keepers member convicted of seditious conspiracy, Kelly Meggs, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. (Associated Press / NPR / NBC News / Politico / New York Times / Washington Post / CNN)

2/ The Supreme Court limited the EPA’s authority to protect wetlands and waterways under the Clean Water Act – the second time in a year that the court has limited the EPA’s ability to combat pollution and climate change. At issue was what counts as “waters of the United States” under the landmark 51-year-old Clean Water Act and how far upstream federal water protections should extend to protect downstream water quality for drinking and wildlife. The ruling will prevent the EPA from putting federal protections on as much as 118 million acres of wetlands. Biden criticized the decision, saying the ruling “defies the science that confirms the critical role of wetlands in safeguarding our nation’s streams, rivers and lakes from chemicals and pollutants” and “upends the legal framework that has protected America’s waters for decades.” (New York Times / Washington Post / CNN / Politico / NPR / NBC News / Bloomberg /