Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy
This guilty verdict was a forgone conclusion, considering that the trial was held in DC and the judge refused to move it:
A jury on Thursday convicted Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, and three allies of a seditious conspiracy to derail the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, a historic verdict following the most significant trial to emerge from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Jurors also convicted the four men — Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl — of conspiring to obstruct Congress’ proceedings on Jan. 6 and destroying government property. The jury acquitted a fifth defendant, Dominic Pezzola, of seditious conspiracy but convicted him of obstructing Congress’ Jan. 6 proceedings as well as several other felony charges.
Historic, all right. “Historic” because they were convicted under a law that isn’t often used and that is ripe for abuse. This article about seditious conspiracy is over a year old and it’s in the leftist Guardian (and concerns the Oath Keepers, another January 6th group). But it explains a few of the problems with such charges:
The charges are significant because they allege that the January 6 attack went beyond disorderly conduct and assaults on law enforcement, instead constituting an organized and violent attempt to stop the democratic transfer of power.
But because sedition charges so rarely go to trial, there isn’t a great deal of precedent for how such trials proceed, experts say. And US prosecutors have a checkered history in securing sedition convictions. “It’s been used in ways that have been absurd and has been used in ways that were slam dunks,” said Joshua Braver, an assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin.
By the way, we’re not talking about charges of sedition but rather seditious conspiracy, which is even easier to abuse. When I was in law school, there were three criminal law principles that troubled me immensely, and they were felony murder, conspiracy, and entrapment – and the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys cases involve the political misuse of those last two (conspiracy, because the bar is so low for the prosecution proving it, and it often just amounts to thoughtcrime; and entrapment, because the bar is so high for defendants’ successfully using it as a defense). I wrote at some length about all of this, in connection with the previous Oath Keepers trial, and I suggest you read it for more background on seditious conspiracy and its uses by the government.
In the past, prosecutors were more aware of the dangers, and more reluctant to bring such charges because of the huge potential for dangerous abuse:
Partly because seditious conspiracy allegations carry so much political weight, prosecutors have generally been hesitant to bring such charges in the past.
“Seditious conspiracy charges are rarely used in American jurisprudence,” said Jeffrey Ian Ross, a criminologist and expert on political crime at the University of Baltimore. Prosecutors can be wary of issuing such charges, even in cases that may fall under its broad statute, he added.
Prior to the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys January 6th cases, the most recent such prosecution was against “Islamist extremist Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine co-conspirators with seditious conspiracy. Prosecutors alleged that Abdel-Rahman and his followers plotted to bomb the United Nations, the FBI building and several other landmarks around New York City.”
Prior to that, it was the Puerto Rican extremists who in 1954 shot up the House of Representatives and wounded five members of the House. I wrote about that incident in this previous post, written just a few days after the January 6th protests, and in it I harked back to a previous post I’d written in 2018 about the Puerto Rican shootings. The differences between January 6th and the shooting in 1954 is quite obvious.
Julie Kelly has been the best reporter on all the January 6th cases, and she’s been writing about the Proud Boys case, too. Here’s what she had to say about the jurors (the judge in the case is also named Kelly, in case you’re confused by that):
Here is who sat on the Proud Boys jury. Judge Tim Kelly repeatedly refused to move trial out of DC.
This is from @lawfareblog no less. pic.twitter.com/vNQcVoR5Ln
— Julie Kelly ?? (@julie_kelly2) May 4, 2023
I refer you to several articles she’s written on the case. The first is this [my emphasis]:
The government devoted an untold amount of resources and manpower to the case. The former president loomed large as prosecutors frequently cited his September 2020 debate remark for Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” as a call to action. (More on Trump’s legal jeopardy related to the outcome of the trial in Friday’s column.)
Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, Joseph Biggs, and Dominic Pezzola have been incarcerated under pretrial detention orders since early 2021 on various counts, including conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding. By the time jury selection began in December, the defendants had been in jail for almost two years awaiting trial…
Two cooperating witnesses and multiple FBI agents and police officers took the stand over the course of several weeks to detail the defendants’ alleged plot to strike “the heart of our democracy,” assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe said on Monday. “Their success was only temporary. The Constitution survived.”
The conspiracy, Mulroe explained, can be “unspoken, implicit, a mutual understanding, or a wink and a nod”—a laughably broad definition for an offense akin to treason.
Please read the whole thing; an excerpt isn’t adequate. Also see this article by Ms. Kelly, in which she explains how the Proud Boys case is most likely a prelude to charging Trump in connection with it:
Any convictions in this trial would give Special Counsel Jack Smith, an independent prosecutor in name only, justification to pursue similar charges against Trump as a coconspirator of sorts…
Prosecutors insist the conspiracy began on December 19, 2020—a date that should alarm Team Trump. At 1:42 a.m. on December 19, Trump tweeted this: “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” According to the Justice Department, that prompted Tarrio and Biggs to formulate plans to “radicalize” the group…
[That this could be a prelude to charging Trump] explains why Graves’ prosecutors pulled every dirty trick in the book to ensure convictions. Further, the burden of proof for the conspiracy charges is shockingly low.
That low bar is one of the things that so upset me when I was in law school.
And here is Kelly’s piece from today, after the verdict was announced:
…Joe Biden’s Justice Department seized on the [seditious conspiracy] law’s vague language—the same manner in which top officials weaponized an untested post-Enron evidence tampering felony—to criminalize political dissent. Six members of the Oath Keepers were found guilty of seditious conspiracy at two separate trials and four other defendants, including one member of the Proud Boys, have pleaded guilty to the offense. Both seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding are felonies punishable by up to 20 years in prison each.
Most of the government’s evidence consisted of inflammatory text messages posted in group chats, which included the presence of an unknown number of FBI informants. No defendant was accused of bringing weapons to the Capitol or assaulting a police officer. Tarrio, the group’s leader, was in a Baltimore hotel on January 6, having left Washington under court order following his arrest on January 4, 2021 for an unrelated incident.
I also refer you to Ace’s post on the subject.
NOTE: I expected this news; in fact, I would have found it shocking if this DC jury had not found them guilty. Nevertheless, it is another intensely depressing example of how far things have gone, and how successful the left has been.
The verdict was, of course, hardly a surprise, but it still comes as terrible news, and it no doubt prefigures a future indictment of Trump (with the conclusion hardly in doubt). One wonders how many leftists can truly believe that the jurors were in any way “impartial”, and one also wonders how any informed citizen (left or right) can still pretend that our once-vaunted legal system has not been completely corrupted, sadly and irreparably, with our republic having been transformed, gradually and then suddenly, into a Neo-Bolshevik kakistocracy.
Let me see, the FBI has plants in conservative activist groups. A conservative protest is planned for Washington DC on January 6th. The FBI, Capitol Police, and DC policed all know it’s going to be very large and may turn violent. The prudent thing would be to have the National Guard on scene and fencing around the Calpol. This was requested and turned down by the Speaker of the House, who controls security for thew Capitol. Either a major misjudgment or a planned trap by San Fran Nan.
During the protest, several agents provocateurs are in the crowd urging them to go into the Capitol. Things get ugly and many protestors end up going peacefully through the Capitol building. Some damage is done to windows and doors, but things ae fairly orderly inside the building. None of the protestors has a firearm. No bombs are exploded. No fires are set. By the standards of the George Floyd protests of 2020 this protest is a picnic, a walk in the park.
Had proper security provisions been made the incursion would not have happened. I believe that had there not been agents provocateurs stirring up trouble, the incursion might not have occurred or might have been minor.
The reaction by the left was immediate – almost as if it had been planned. The National Guard was called in and the entire Capitol grounds were fenced – for three months. This was a signal that the MAGA protestors were dangerous and might come back. At the same time a focus-group tested word, INSURRECTION, was trumpeted by the left and the MSM.
The DOJ sprang into action immediately. They began the largest, most expensive manhunt and prosecution in American history. They have set out to teach the MAGA Republicans a lesson. And the message is loud and clear. And that is: They are in charge and intend to ruin the lives of as many MAGA Republicans as they can. This is intended to strike fear into the hearts of any who might consider protesting our leftist government.
Meanwhile the conservative SCOTUIS judges and their families are constantly in fear for their lives, while protestors threaten them with impunity.
And that’s where we’re at.
When do we start calling these “show trials”.
From Wikipedia:
“A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so they will serve as both an impressive example and a warning to other would-be dissidents or transgressors.”
“Show trials tend to be retributive rather than corrective and they are also conducted for propagandistic purposes.[3] When aimed at individuals on the basis of protected classes or characteristics, such trials are examples of political persecution. The term was first recorded in 1928.”
JJ:
Good summary – plus, from the start, one goal of the whole thing was to prosecute Trump.
A law that permits a twenty-year sentence on “a wink and a nod” should be repealed.
Marxists are gearing up on their Kangaroo Courts. Julie Kelly article will make you mad of sick how it was rigged they were not getting out of the bull crap charges.
We have reached, full on, third world dictatorship. I think I am staying away from the news for more than awhile.
Wonder if any jurists have been on previous Jan6 trials, or will be called for future Jan6 trials.
The Left likes claim that ” the adults are in charge “, when they are in power. It looks to me more as if the 16 year old girls are in charge.
Neo, thanks for the thumbs up. Yes, the overriding motivation was always to get rid of the Donald. And the beat goes on.
“how successful the left has been”
No, how vicious and corrupt the left has been.
They’ve only been ‘successful’ if the goal is advancing the nation closer to a shooting civil war.
There isn’t any legitimate way for them to argue that these persecutions are good for the country. When Republicans start using them on Democrats they’ll scream. And thereby admit just how sick and disgusting they are.
I had a discussion a while back with a friend (who is very much a Leftist) about the J6 riot. I asked him what did he think about the “attack on democracy “ and all that. He thought it would give time to Trump to get a recount. I asked him where in the Constitution it allowed that. He had no answer. I told him nothing would have happened. For the love of God, the British burned down down the Capital! Did American democracy die? I think the people who thought this was an attempt to overthrow our government somehow believe that American democracy flows from Washington D.C. and nowhere else. This is what happens when people have no idea how our system of government works.
no the election was stolen because the state legislatures did not do their duty, and now we find ourselves in this dumpsterfire, because the court was intimidated from challenging the fraud,
Could an appeal arguing that these trials should have been moved from DC, where a fair trial was impossible, succeed?
I remember Birchers years ago arguing that centralization of government in DC would make a Communist revolution in the capital into a takeover of the whole country, in the same way that Lenin’s Petrograd revolution meant a change of government for Russia. Of course the October Revolution was followed by a bloody civil war, but somehow seizing St. Petersburg and Moscow made them legitimate in many Russian’s eyes) .
January 6th wasn’t going to overthrow anything, but the French and their neighbors were always concerned that disturbances in Paris would mean revolution in the country. “When Paris sneezes, Europe catches a cold.” The Democrats may have tapped into some people’s primal fears, but it’s getting hard to tell real fears from feelings that people take on because they feel they are expected to.
The more I see it, the more I am convinced DC needs to be stripped of what local government and population it has. This disgusts me, and I imagine it is partially an intentional move.
@Abraxas
The differences I see with Paris and Moscow/St. Petersburg is that they (ESPECIALLY the Russian examples) were built up as powerful, centralized, authoritarian states, and their capital cities tended to be powerful and populous fairly soon after they started being constructed (though “Peter” was rather synthetic because it was built from the ground up to be a capital).In France’s case this was somewhat modified by feudal and commercial development and the need to keep the nobility, clergy, and “the Mob” at least somewhat placated with the iron hand kept in a velvet glove.
(Dumas actually gives a decent overview of this sort of stuff, even if his work is largely historical fiction.)
Similar sort of happened in Russia but it took a DRASTIC U-Turn due to the Mongols (among other things), with an even more suffocating, powerful, autocratic despot (literally) arising, whom even the most powerful nobility had to address while referring to themselves as “your slaves.” Helped by burning down and purging a lot of cities that tried to compete.
When the Tsar of Moscow conquered parts of the Baltic Coast and decided to build a new “Western” Capital, power moved there (even if Moscow never entirely lost its prestige, population, or importance).
That along with the traditions of utterly authoritarian centralized power meant that when that power faltered and then fell apart (as happened in the Time of Troubles and during WWI) utter chaos ensued. There was a provisional republic helped along by the remnants of the military and bureaucratic elite that tried to cobble together some kind of democratic system, but it would’ve been a trying task even during peacetime, and without the Bolsheviks (with lots of German funds and guns) trying to play.
The US was literally built different even more foundationally than France, as a union of colonies/states used to self-government and forced to depend on themselves. Centralization (especially since the Civil War and particularly the 1960s) has hurt that but there are still robust state level organizations and a civic community on the grassroots. That’s probably done more to explain why AT THE MOMENT a hard Commie Takeover in DC wouldn’t lead to the rest of the US Falling.
At least yet.
Likewise, it’s also worth noting that Paris came to prominence in part due to its Count Odo rebelling against an ineffective Frankish leader after being forced to fight the Vikings off alone.
But they obviously want to centralize power, and our Federalist inheritance cannot be abused forever and still be a viable shield.
The Biden government WANTED TO incarcerate the restless, the demonstrators who entered the Capitol building of our Republic, and did, for a year in solitary for a misdemeanor, before trial. Plus inexcusably shot one person to death; the Capitol cop shooter was exonerated. He was not tried. Now we have the show trials, all found guilty, sentencing pending.
That barriers and the Nat’l Guard were not in place, were refused (!) before Jan.6, shows clearly this was a setup by the Biden administration.
This is no longer America. It is more like Nicaragua. And an apparent majority is OK with this. Want a banana?
I’m keeping my head down.
“The more I see it, the more I am convinced DC needs to be stripped of what local government and population it has. This disgusts me, and I imagine it is partially an intentional move.”
The case was tried in the District court of the District of Columbia i.e. had no connection to DC local govt.
“Yes, the overriding motivation was always to get rid of the Donald. And the beat goes on.”
Worth noting that the presiding judge who refused to move the trial elsewhere, one Timothy Kelly is a) a 14 year member of the Federalist Society and b) a Big Don nominee.
But—“Kelly spent a decade as a federal prosecutor, serving first as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Columbia and then as a trial attorney in the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division.” (from the Wikipedia entry on Kelly)
Once a corner cutting prosecutor (the Public Integrity Section is a tipoff) always a corner cutting prosecutor.