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The Justice Department issued the first sedition-related charges to the January 6 insurgency on Thursday, marking a turning point in the year-long probe.
The lawsuit centers on the Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist organization, and its leader, Stewart Rhodes. Many of the defendants are already facing prosecution for storming the US Capitol and denying any wrongdoing. However, the latest charge considerably raises the stakes and makes public additional facts about their alleged violent plans.
Attorney General Merrick Garland had rejected previous attempts to prosecute the seditious conspiracy claim. Those briefed on the incident, however, say that in the months since, FBI inspectors and DC federal prosecutors have spent a significant amount of time constructing the case, at least in part with the help of cooperators and the benefit of internal Oath Keepers communications.
The DOJ went there on suspicion of sedition.
Federal prosecutors have been chastised for being too soft on the rioters by legal experts, Democratic politicians, Donald Trump detractors, and media pundits. The claims of “seditious conspiracy” have now been used to respond to that criticism in a significant way.
In a significant address last week, Garland stated that prosecutors would go after the perpetrators of the January 6 attack “at any stage… whether they were present that day or were otherwise legally liable for the assault on our democracy.” The indictment issued on Thursday adds some meat to the bones.
In court, sedition is difficult to prove, and an indictment is only the beginning of legal prosecution. Prosecutors will have to jump through several hoops before they can obtain convictions. This is, nonetheless, a crucial first step.
It disproves, once and for all, the argument advanced by those who downplayed the incidents of January 6 that the attack on the Capitol was not an insurgency since no one was charged with sedition.
It took some time for the inquiry to get to this point. Last March, it appeared that former US Attorney Michael Sherwin, who supervised the probe at the time, got ahead of himself when he said there should be sedition cases. Months passed without anything materializing to support his claims. Sherwin has been vindicated by the new indictment.
