DOJ charges Proud Boys leaders with seditious conspiracy over Jan. 6 attack The new, high-profile seditious conspiracy charges for the Proud Boys come just four days before a House committee is set to hold the first of many hearings detailing the findings of a months-long investigation into the events leading up to and on Jan. 6. The hearings are expected to increase Democratic pressure on Attorney General Merrick Garland to criminally charge members of Trump’s inner circle or the former president himself for the events that day.
I despise Trump and think his supporters have been duped. But I find the sedition charge here troubling, personally. How are they distinguishing this as an actual attempt at overthrowing the government versus civil disobedience as political protest against how the election was conducted? Charges like this can easily backfire against Democratic protesters who will inevitably try to disrupt the transfer of power should Trump or a Trump clone win in 2024.
Might have to something to do wanting to hang Mike Pence or whatever other nonsense they were plotting? We'll find out soon enough what the Feds might have - apparently the Proud Boys were dumb enough to allow a historian to embed himself with their group and record their meetings/discussions/planning/etc: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/...ed-to-testify-at-first-jan-6-hearing-00037639
Mike Pence has clearly broken away from Trump. He was personally threatened. This may represent a real significant detriment to Trump wannabes in the Republican near future.
If rambunctious lefties storm a government building and in the hysteria people are killed, there should be some sort of criminal charges filed. Is it sedition? I think of sedition as plotting to overthrow a government. Periods of contested government transition is a gray area, and I don't know if sedition laws should apply there. People who understand these laws probably better than me, please correct me.
The charges seem to fit what they are accused of doing. What exactly is the issue here? There was no "contested government transition".
I mean, a sizeable contingent of elected officials did contest the transition, whether we agree with their reasoning or not. Sedition | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute (cornell.edu) Currently, the federal government criminalizes seditious conspiracy in 18 U.S.C. § 2384, which states, “f two or more persons in [the U.S.], conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.” They are indeed guilty of seditious conspiracy by that wording. It is more expansive than I realized.
I don't think you have been keeping up with the investigation into 1/6. This was a multifaceted coup attempt orchestrated from the top. Sending fake electors, coercing Mike Pence to not certify the election, pressuring the Georgia Secretary of State to produce more votes for Trump, etc. It wasn't just the violence and protests at the Capitol. Carl Bernstein summarizes the insurrection part of the coup attempt pretty well.
