Yes, the DOJ Should Charge Violent Anti-American Radicals with Seditious Conspiracy

 Yes, the DOJ Should Charge Violent Anti-American Radicals with Seditious Conspiracy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/yes-the-doj-should-charge-violent-anti-american-radicals-with-seditious-conspiracy/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-09-17&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart

Excerpt: Everything old is new again. In a conference call last week, Attorney General Bill Barr urged federal prosecutors to be aggressive in filing charges against violent anti-American radicals who are rioting in various cities, attacking government buildings, and targeting law-enforcement officers. The AG reportedly recommended a range of offenses, including seditious conspiracy. Instantly, according to the Wall Street Journal, “legal experts” warned that the “rarely used statute could be difficult to prove in court and potentially run up against First Amendment protections.” These are the same arguments that legal experts posited when I charged terrorists with seditious conspiracy for bombing the World Trade Center and plotting to bomb other New York City landmarks in 1993. The experts were wrong then, and they are wrong now. The seditious-conspiracy statute, which is codified by Section 2384 of the modern federal penal code, was actually enacted by Congress during the Civil War — mainly to deal with Confederate sympathizers in free states who were violently sabotaging the Union war effort. As the Journal’s experts observe, it is rarely used. That is not because the crime is especially difficult to prove; it is much more straightforward than many federal crimes. Rather, it is because the conduct at issue — dangerous conspiracies to levy war against the United States, to violently overthrow our government, or to violently oppose the government’s legitimate authority — is historically unusual. Notice the thread that runs through these variations of conspiratorial behavior: Force. Keep that in mind and you will easily grasp why apprehensions about sedition charges are specious. Unless prosecutors can prove that the alleged conspirators agreed to use force against the government, there is no such crime.  (...) Congress has proscribed a straightforward offense: Force must be used, or at least contemplated, with the specific intent to strike at the United States or its government. Therefore, the fact that the word “sedition” may be fraught with ambiguity and dark historical overtones is irrelevant. (...) (I)f there is evidence that people are using force or plotting violent attacks against U.S. government installations, there is no viable objection to the introduction of evidence that they hated the United States and called for attacks against the government. The statements are not the crime; they are evidence of the crime, and the First Amendment does not prohibit their use as such. [McCarthy is right on point with this There is no reason NOT to charge people in a state of open rebellion with the federal crimes specified. I added emphasis. Ron P.]