Extremists will evolve into 'new forms' — even if seditious conspiracy is proven: former prosecutor
April 28, 2023
The jury is now deliberating in the seditious conspiracy trial against higher-ups in the far-right "Western Chauvinist" group the Proud Boys, following up on similar trials against the Oath Keepers for their role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Even if they are convicted, however, argued former federal prosecutor Harry Litman on MSNBC's "The ReidOut" Friday, it's not the end of far-right paramilitary groups, who will continue to "evolve" into new forms.
"Harry, let me go back to you on this," said anchor Joy Reid. "What we do know is these are some of the texts we saw going from Oath Keepers who were connected to other far-right groups, the Three Percenters and others. So Kelly Meggs, who was the leader of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers, which is one of the other main groups, started reaching out to allies and other far-right organizations. they sought to create what prosecutors called an alliance. He told a member of the Three Percenters he made contact with the Proud Boys and called them a force multiplier."
"There's video here that shows Enrique Tarrio — a documentary filmmaker took this video. This is the garage meeting on January 5th," continued Reid. "The video included a portion in which you can hear someone saying it's inevitable, it's going to happen, we just have to do it strong and fast. This video includes Stewart Rhodes, Enrique Tarrio, a lawyer for the Oath Keepers, the leader of Latinos for Trump, which also Enrique Tarrio used to be a member of, a man who ran a group called Vets for Trump. Tarrio sent a document saying '1776 Returns.' And it outlined a January 6th style attack. According to the Department of Justice, the plan was to occupy a few crucial buildings in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, including House and Senate office buildings outside the Capitol, with as many people as possible to show our politicians we're in charge. We know that several Oath Keepers were convicted of seditious conspiracy. Do their convictions tell us anything about this trial since they were working so closely together?"
"Well, it's a really interesting and important point," said Litman. "And there's this amoeba-like quality of these groups, even the woman that Trump embraced, she's no longer QAnon. She's got a new group. We see this in the international realm as well, where it's very hard for the government to kind of keep up, because a trial is a snapshot of criminality, when it happened. The theory here of the government — and seditious conspiracy is always a hard charge to prove — is that what the Proud Boys were and wanted to be was the spear going forward because their numbers wouldn't permit the attack on their own, so they did need to combine, including with people who just got caught up in the moment."
"So yes, that garage video I found really alarming, specifically not just for the charges themselves and January 6th, but for what it portends of the continuing kind of evolution and new emergence of groups in different forms," Litman added.
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