Four more found guilty of seditious conspiracy
January 24, 2023 11:01 AM   Subscribe

Three members of the far-right Oath Keepers and a fourth associate have been convicted of seditious conspiracy (Washington Post) by a Washington, DC, jury for their role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection. This is the second set of convictions: A jury found Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and another leader of the group guilty of seditious conspiracy in a separate trial in November. Seditious conspiracy is difficult to prove, but the Justice Department convinced both juries.

Oath Keepers members found guilty of seditious conspiracy , CNN (Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand):
In addition to the seditious conspiracy charges, Minuta, Hackett, Moerschel and Vallejo were also found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, as well as conspiracy to prevent a member of Congress from discharging their official duties.
As historian Heather Cox Richardson points out in her latest Letters from an American,
Five members of another extremist gang, the Proud Boys, are currently on trial on that charge [seditious conspiracy] and others.
One former Proud Boys leader, Jeremy Bertino, has pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy.
posted by kristi (50 comments total) 28 users marked this as a favorite
 
One reason I wanted to post this is that it was absent from my usual news feeds - apparently there are so many mass shootings that there's little room for any other news. I found out about this from Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter.
posted by kristi at 11:02 AM on January 24, 2023 [26 favorites]


BuT wHy IsN'T gArLaNd DoInG aNyThInG???
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:12 AM on January 24, 2023 [9 favorites]


(For more news of this sort, Democracy Now and the SPLC both posted about this.)
posted by eviemath at 11:12 AM on January 24, 2023 [4 favorites]


Sidebar for a particular Proud Boy asshole I've been following since long before Jan 6.

In June 2022, Tusitala 'Tiny' Toese was bailed out by the Proud Boys to the tune of $85k. Once out of jail, he let the battery die on his GPS ankle monitor and skipped out on his court appearances, because of course he did. But as of last week, he's back in custody with a $1M bail.
posted by ryanrs at 11:40 AM on January 24, 2023 [34 favorites]


Heather Cox Richardson is one of my must-reads for about the past 3–4 years. She offers great clarity on contemporary goings-on, and often with astute comparisons to similar point in history.
posted by bz at 12:26 PM on January 24, 2023 [18 favorites]


Unless these dangerous people are dealt with swiftly and judiciously, they will continue to erode the foundations of a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
posted by DJZouke at 12:33 PM on January 24, 2023 [5 favorites]


The really interesting thing about the planning and execution of this coup attempt is that apparently it's a conspiracy that went all the way to the top no one in a position of official power had anything to do with.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:42 PM on January 24, 2023 [15 favorites]


I want to see Trump in prison. Ok, that's a lie, I want to see Trump in front of a firing squad. I'll settle for him in prison.
Not that I'm unhappy that these stupid fuckers are going to prison mind you. It's just that they're little fish. None of the big fash on the Republican train to apocalypse seem to suffer any consequences. I want there to be BIG consequences. I want Kavanaugh crying as he's led away in cuffs, I want Robertson resigning from the court in shame. I WANT ALL OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS!

And while I know it's too much to ask can we nationalize all the billionaires industries, and help them on the way to their most fervent wish, a trip to Mars?! One way of course.

If I'm gonna dream I might as well dream big.
posted by evilDoug at 12:53 PM on January 24, 2023 [53 favorites]


I'm hoping the DOJ is methodically building their case against corrupt Trump, his corrupt family, and his corrupt cronies. It's certainly heartening to see justice delivered to the seditionists, but I want to see Trump on trial. The Biden administration is not making a lot of fuss about the convictions; are they just too casual or are they building a careful and strong case? Please let it be the latter.

Meanwhile, Dems everywhere should be using the term Seditious Conspiracy. A lot. Use it your band name. Name your new puppy. Got a race horse? Tweet it, Instagram it, etc. Name & Shame these fuckers.

Hey, I have a boat to name...
posted by theora55 at 1:01 PM on January 24, 2023 [30 favorites]


I remember back in the good old days of 2000 when the Supreme Court actually did steal an election for the Republicans and in general Democrats and other decent people just got on with our lives.
posted by Gelatin at 1:06 PM on January 24, 2023 [17 favorites]


Boaty McSeditious Conspiracyface, checks out. :)
posted by riverlife at 1:06 PM on January 24, 2023 [12 favorites]


That 2000 Supreme Court decision, that really was the moment wasn't it? Being able to to interfere like that in a presidential election gave the right wing a set of permissions and look where the US is today.
I know there's an immense amount of context and endless other factors but that 2000 decision looms larger and larger every year.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 1:10 PM on January 24, 2023 [54 favorites]


Unless these dangerous people are dealt with swiftly and judiciously, they will continue to erode the foundations of a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Haha, this is not exactly that. Per the CNN article, they are on house-arrest post their guilty verdicts, and maximum sentence is 20 years, and a request please don't own guns, which one of the guys was already in trouble for.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:12 PM on January 24, 2023 [3 favorites]


I'm hoping the DOJ is methodically building their case against corrupt Trump, his corrupt family, and his corrupt cronies.

An analysis by a couple of lawyers who have prosecuted federal cases suggests that this is a frequently-used strategy: start at the smallest levels of an organization and work upward. It builds a body of evidence backed by guilty verdicts that makes it harder for those higher in an organization to successfully defend against or win on appeal. Here's hoping that it where we are heading.
posted by Silvery Fish at 1:14 PM on January 24, 2023 [32 favorites]


As the Republicans slowly drift away from Trump, I think where they'll land rhetorically is something like "Trump and his ilk are definitely guilty of something but not of that." " That, " of course, being whatever they might be held criminally responsible for and "something" being a wink to their base that says "don't worry, your heroes won't ever be prosecuted despite their abundant crimes. "
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:38 PM on January 24, 2023 [6 favorites]


At this point, successfully prosecuting Trump would be a grave error for Democrats (as well as the rest of humanity), UNLESS the crimes he was convicted of would splash back on Republicans as a whole enough to keep them from taking the Presidency in 2024.

Because Trump cannot win in 2024 and Republicans know this, but if they try to nominate anyone else, an unconvicted Trump will tear the party apart and probably try to run as an independent. Which would be catastrophic for Republicans and good for everyone else.

In my opinion only the Putin/Saudi treason I believe Trump certainly committed could be guaranteed to rise to this level.

Everything Trump has said or done shows without a doubt how terrified he is of any initiative which could expose this, and I don’t understand why Biden and his DOJ don’t get what that means.
posted by jamjam at 1:46 PM on January 24, 2023 [4 favorites]


Because Trump cannot win in 2024 and Republicans know this, but if they try to nominate anyone else, an unconvicted Trump will tear the party apart and probably try to run as an independent.

Why can't Trump win? He's won once, and barely lost the second time around. Republicans fight a few days and then get in line. They've shown this multiple times. Democrats lost 4 seats in New York in the last election, which used to be a relatively safe blue state, and lost another seat due to the Census. There is no reason to believe he can't win.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:03 PM on January 24, 2023 [28 favorites]


The Great Terror was horrible.

Almost every year since the Supreme Court awarded Bush jr the presidency, I've found myself forced to ask, "but was it really so bad I wouldn't want to risk a repeat?"
posted by nushustu at 2:08 PM on January 24, 2023 [6 favorites]


There is no reason to believe he can't win.
And no reason to believe that the Republicans won't have a red wave in 2022 taking both Houses of Congress. Except for the fact that it didn't happen. New York remains a relatively safe blue state. The losses were due to gerrymandering and were the fault of another guy from Queens getting overly cocky and believing that he could get away with anything.
posted by dannyboybell at 2:14 PM on January 24, 2023 [3 favorites]


Couldn't happen to a bunch of nicer. Let's move up the food chain next.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 2:49 PM on January 24, 2023 [3 favorites]


Meanwhile, these are just the kinds of people that Elon Musk and hangers-on are unblocking on Twitter, while banning important journalists and left-leaning voices.
posted by JHarris at 3:06 PM on January 24, 2023 [15 favorites]


At this point, successfully prosecuting Trump would be a grave error for Democrats

Fiat justitia ruat caelum.
Let justice be done though the heavens fall.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:52 PM on January 24, 2023 [23 favorites]


I want to see Trump in prison. Ok, that's a lie, I want to see Trump in front of a firing squad. I'll settle for him in prison.

Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:54 PM on January 24, 2023 [3 favorites]


Speaking of conspiracies, the recent charges against the FBI guy in charge of counterterrorism are pretty sweet, even if they are too late to matter.
posted by Dashy at 4:17 PM on January 24, 2023 [8 favorites]




Sidebar for a particular Proud Boy asshole I've been following since long before Jan 6.

In June 2022, Tusitala 'Tiny' Toese was bailed out by the Proud Boys to the tune of $85k. Once out of jail, he let the battery die on his GPS ankle monitor and skipped out on his court appearances, because of course he did. But as of last week, he's back in custody with a $1M bail.
(reading the link)

wow, Tiny finally did something egregious enough that the Portland Sheriff pulled him in? Damn, I thought that "proud boys is just boys being boys" was like their prime directive or something.
posted by Sauce Trough at 4:36 PM on January 24, 2023 [6 favorites]


On a tangential note, it was a bit of a belated lightbulb moment for me when I realized the "checks and balances" and "power split between 3 branches of US government", which I'd been indoctrinated were there to protect our rights and block consolidation of power, were just an arrangement of convenience between wealthy white male landowners, and that our current lousy situation is still fostered in large part by the enttenched barriers to participation by anyone else.

Tl;Dr. Separation of powers is not the same as delegation of power to all.

Not that there was any examination of this in my secondary education.
posted by allium cepa at 6:03 PM on January 24, 2023 [10 favorites]


I’ll save my schadenfreude for when Trump 47 forgets to pardon them.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 6:09 PM on January 24, 2023 [2 favorites]


I suspect my wish hand smells nicer than your shit hand.
posted by evilDoug at 7:32 PM on January 24, 2023 [11 favorites]


An analysis by a couple of lawyers who have prosecuted federal cases suggests that this is a frequently-used strategy: start at the smallest levels of an organization and work upward.

to be fair that is what people said about the mueller investigation and we all know where that ended up. 'working your way up' may be a viable strategy, but it's also a good way of looking busy without actually addressing the real issues
posted by logicpunk at 8:42 PM on January 24, 2023 [19 favorites]


On a tangential note, it was a bit of a belated lightbulb moment for me when I realized the "checks and balances" and "power split between 3 branches of US government", which I'd been indoctrinated were there to protect our rights and block consolidation of power, were just an arrangement of convenience between wealthy white male landowners, and that our current lousy situation is still fostered in large part by the enttenched barriers to participation by anyone else.

Tl;Dr. Separation of powers is not the same as delegation of power to all.


That's a pretty cynical view of separation of powers.

"Delegation of power to all" often ends up as the exact opposite... e.g., the Marxist-Leninist concept of "the dictatorship of the proletariat". The founders were familiar with it also, as it was manifested during the French Revolution.

Separation of powers is a good thing. We do have other barriers to democracy, like the electoral college and the Senate, that are not so good and that have nothing to do with separation of powers.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:36 PM on January 24, 2023 [4 favorites]


Neither am I arguing that separation of powers is a bad thing nor that other governing arrangements lack weaknesses and downsides

I'm merely pointing out who was entitled to participate in tbe exercise of power when the federal government setup we have today in the US was devised. And I'm asserting that part of the reason it fails to block the ongoing consolidation of power by the rich is that this structure, along with others, many of which were devised to help ensure access to that structure remained with existing privileged groups, is still largely in the hands of the same set today. Not completely. But more than we acknowledge in our education. And failing to address the racist, sexist, classist intent of these structures makes it very hard to modify the outcome of their operations for the benefit of all.
posted by allium cepa at 12:01 AM on January 25, 2023 [6 favorites]


successfully prosecuting Trump would be a grave error for Democrats

The last time Democrats ran someone against Trump, they didn't take him seriously then, either.

If January 6, or 1.1M dead Americans, or concentration camps along the border, or any of the numerous other crimes do not convince the Democrat elite that Trump should face justice, I'm not sure what scale of violence will.

What scale of death and destruction would it take to convince you?

BuT wHy IsN'T gArLaNd DoInG aNyThInG???

It's still an open question as to what Garland is doing.

More than half of the roughly 2000 Republican traitors who participated in the January 6 insurrection have not been charged.

Of those less than half who were charged, only a third were given guilty verdicts, and most the sentences against those traitors have been lenient.

As for sentencing, more than half have only been given probation or less than two months in jail.

And Trump is still walking free.

This is not justice. This is dangerous.

Others can make up their own mind based on the judicial results, but I think what data we have so far reasonably suggests that we are still in serious trouble, and Republican traitors have been more than happy to run out the clock.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:56 AM on January 25, 2023 [23 favorites]


successfully prosecuting Trump would be a grave error for Democrats
The last time Democrats ran someone against Trump, they didn't take him seriously then, either.
Biden seemed pretty clear on the risks, are you thinking of 2016? I definitely wouldn’t say things are great now but I’m heartened by the generation of Democratic voters who aren’t leaving anything to chance now.
posted by adamsc at 5:31 AM on January 25, 2023 [3 favorites]


Biden seemed pretty clear on the risks, are you thinking of 2016?

Even if they were, Hillary Clinton said that Trump was unfit to be president. Candidates criticize their opponents all the time, but saying they aren't fit at all to hold office was something new. She also pointed out during the debates that Trump would be beholden to Russia.

Democrats might have done more to win the couple thousand votes it would have taken to flip the 2016 election, but it wasn't from not taking Trump seriously.
posted by Gelatin at 6:01 AM on January 25, 2023 [1 favorite]


The "failure to take seriously" was not on the Dem side, period.

We have all failed to get the country to take the risks of white male supemacy Christifascist extremists seriously, but that is ongoing.
posted by Dashy at 6:19 AM on January 25, 2023 [7 favorites]


to be fair that is what people said about the mueller investigation and we all know where that ended up.

You mean the Mueller investigation that was investigating a sitting President (not an ex-President) and where the decision to prosecute or not rested in the hands of an Attorney General appointed by the President being investigated?
posted by soundguy99 at 6:51 AM on January 25, 2023 [4 favorites]


yes that one. the one where the current AG has not in 2 years moved on the obstruction charges that were clearly teed up in the report.
posted by logicpunk at 7:11 AM on January 25, 2023 [4 favorites]


That 2000 Supreme Court decision, that really was the moment wasn't it? Being able to to interfere like that in a presidential election gave the right wing a set of permissions and look where the US is today.
I know there's an immense amount of context and endless other factors but that 2000 decision looms larger and larger every year.


Or was it Iran/Contra?

Or was it Reagan's election campaign team negotiating with Iran behind Jimmy Carter's back to delay the release of embassy hostages until after the election?

Or was it Nixon?

The history of unpunished Republican perfidy is always at least one thing longer than people think.
posted by srboisvert at 11:24 AM on January 25, 2023 [15 favorites]


The history of unpunished Republican perfidy is always at least one thing longer than people think.

True -- very true! -- but while Nixon rampantly cheated to win the 1972 election (which he did), getting caught cheating ultimately forced him to resign, because Republicans told him that after the "smoking gun" tape, they wouldn't protect him from impeachment the way Republicans would later protect Trump.
posted by Gelatin at 11:34 AM on January 25, 2023 [2 favorites]


Nixon moved the window, normalizing crime at that level. They have been playing that long game consistently and Trump, whether he is ever convicted or elected again, has already served likewise. As will any other right-wing president.

Any conviction is good, and seditious conspiracy has a nice heft. But the prosecution has to make it to the top, or it’s just cover.
posted by maniabug at 8:46 PM on January 25, 2023 [4 favorites]


Nixon moved the window, normalizing crime at that level. They have been playing that long game consistently and Trump, whether he is ever convicted or elected again, has already served likewise. As will any other right-wing president.

They also did so by impeaching Bill Clinton for obviously specious reasons and with no hope of getting a conviction, though at least Trump getting impeached twice is unprecedented even if the Republicans in the Senate covered for him.

Then again, I don't doubt House Republicans would impeach Biden or any other Democratic president twice just to even the score.

The trouble is, Republicans don't consider Democratic political power legitimate at all, but everyone -- Democratic politicians and the so-called "liberal media" alike -- continue to pretend that Republicans are good faith partners in a two-party democratic system.
.
posted by Gelatin at 4:25 AM on January 26, 2023 [7 favorites]


Nixon “monkey wrenched” the 1968 Paris Peace Talks to hurt the Democrats' chances in the election.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:39 AM on January 26, 2023 [6 favorites]


successfully prosecuting Trump would be a grave error for Democrats

I think this is an insidiously dangerous opinion. Hold traitors accountable, period.
posted by pickinganameismuchharderthanihadanticipated at 10:23 AM on January 27, 2023 [7 favorites]


^ very much this

In fact I'd be curious to hear arguments for not prosecuting Trump.
posted by elkevelvet at 10:44 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]


Most of the arguements boil down to appeasement. Arresting Trump is going to be a shit show regardless of how it goes down. There will be protests and rioting. Wide spread property damage. Shots will likely be fired. Terrorist acts will likely be committed. People will be assaulted maybe killed. Everyone involved on the government side including their families will be subjected to harrassment, death threats, kidnapping and murder. A guilty verdict that results in jail time will ramp that up to 11 and will extend the harrassment to prison workers.

And that's the good result. The bad result is that plus something on the spectrum from another fizzled insurection to open civil war.

It is completely understandable why people want to avoid that outcome by just hoping he'll go away or choke on a happy meal or something.

The remaining arguements are all realpolitik reasoning that Trump free is worse for the GOP than Democrats.
posted by Mitheral at 11:25 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]


Let justice be done though the heavens fall.
posted by Gelatin at 12:24 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]


There will be protests and rioting. Wide spread property damage. Shots will likely be fired.

This of course, from the side that were performatively outraged at the Black Lives Matter protests.
posted by Gelatin at 12:25 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]


Arresting Trump is going to be a shit show regardless of how it goes down. There will be protests and rioting. Wide spread property damage. Shots will likely be fired. Terrorist acts will likely be committed. People will be assaulted maybe killed. Everyone involved on the government side including their families will be subjected to harrassment, death threats, kidnapping and murder.

I wouldn't count on it.

Trump is still important to the right, but less and less so with each passing month. Now they've got other standard-bearers like deSantis, and the crazy caucus the House, to glom onto.

There might be a few loons who act out, but I don't think it'll be mass mayhem.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:54 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]


Federal prosecutors discussed charging Trump in Stormy Daniels case when he left office, book says
With Trump about to leave office in January 2021, however, Audrey Strauss, the acting US attorney, held multiple discussions with a small group of prosecutors to discuss its evidence against Trump. They decided to not seek an indictment of Trump for several reasons, Honig writes, including the political ramifications and the fact that Trump’s other scandals, such as efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the January 6, 2021, insurrection, “made the campaign finance violations seem somehow trivial and outdated by comparison.”

Seems like bad policy not to indict someone for crimes because they keep doing bigger crimes!
posted by logicpunk at 12:12 PM on January 28, 2023 [9 favorites]


« Older "Hollywood Fireball" like no other   |   A lungful of air is like a multifunction toolkit... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments