Former FBI agent Clint Watts told Tara Setmayer and Rick Wilson that there is one small thing missing in the cases against the Jan. 6 insurrectionists and that's a terrorism charge.
Speaking on the Lincoln Project TV, Watts explained that if any of the Capitol attackers displayed a logo with Osama bin Laden on it then the Justice Department would link them all together as terrorists. Because they displayed a Proud Boys or Oath Keepers there's no way to consider them a network of terrorists.
"I'll give you an international terrorism example because I think it helps people understand the difference," Watts said. "If there was someone with an Osama bin Laden logo on their Facebook page, say, 'Hey let's go to the Capitol and break into it,' they would immediately get a visit from the FBI. There's a case open called Al Qaeda inspired terrorism. FBI agents are organized around it. International terrorism groups that analyzes it and put all the pieces together. They have social media, they're up and looking at it. If someone had paid for that person to go to the Capitol, that person would be in violation of it and would be material support to terrorism."
All of these laws came after the Sept. 11 attacks, but there still are no domestic terrorism laws. The way it stands now, all of the agents around the country are on different cases with individual insurrectionists and there's nothing to link them all together.
There are a number of insurrectionists claiming now that they were just angry about the election and they were practicing their freedom of speech. The problem, however, is that behind the scene,s there is all of this evidence that they were coordinating.
"There was an organization behind it and the organization's stated mission was to overthrow the U.S. government or stop democratic processes," Watts continued. "The definition of terrorism is the use of violence or the threat of violence for political or social change. That's what happened."
Because all of these defendants were working together, everything would be treated differently if there was a domestic terrorism law similar to the international terrorism laws.
See the full interview in the video below: