Here come sedition charges in the U.S. Capitol terrorist attack
In the three weeks since the domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol, more than a hundred participants have been arrested for their roles. But most of the criminal charges have been of the lesser, easier to prove variety, such as trespassing or violent entry.
We’ve been hoping this was merely because the Feds wanted to quickly get the arrests rolling with the basic charges, and that we’d end up seeing superseding indictments with the more serious charges. Sure enough, the first conspiracy charges have come down in recent days. Now here come the sedition charges.
The Acting U.S. Attorney for Washington DC announced today that he expects to bring the first sedition charges as early as next week, according to NBC News. Sedition charges can result in twenty year prison sentences, and will send a message to future would-be Capitol stormers that their lives will effectively be over if they ever try such a thing.
Sedition charges could also lay the legal groundwork for bringing incitement of sedition charges against those who specifically urged the terrorists to descend on the Capitol, such as Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley. We’ll see where this goes. But it’s clearly still just getting started.
