michigan, and a few in ohio and indiana. all were members of a militia militia group that called itself the who tyrese-ing on their website that they believe in preparing for an anti christ and in getting ready for to defending themselves. among the forces of evil the group believed was anyone in the government, beginning with local police. court documents say the group talked about ways to lure police for an attack and when one plan, they would kill a policeman, then bomb the officer s funeral procession. here s the thing about that case, it failed. the seditious conspiracy charges ended up getting drop against the hutaree in large part, because a case of seditious conspiracy is extraordinarily difficult to prove, even against people whose sentiments or beliefs are clearly anti government extremists. but the department of justice has met that very, very high bar with 14 of these pro trump militia members. the federal prosecutors, able to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that more t
because he had been charged with you facing a church, actually, in a previous visit to d. c. in december, right? so he definitively was not at the capitol, he s in a baltimore hotel room, and yet, a d. c. jury convicted him of this very serious crime, despite his lack of physical presence. barbara, as someone who has experience in this, knows how hard it is, what are your conclusions about the success the department of justice has had now in three different trials of obtaining this many convictions on this very difficult charge? it s very gratifying to see that they were able to get these convictions because as you say, chris, this is a difficult charge to prove. and there s not a lot of case law out there that can help prosecutors hang their hat on various aspects of it. and so, you know, as you mentioned, the hutaree case is one that my former office brought in 2010 and was unsuccessful. and i think one of the challenges that made it such an uphill battle is that when you argue tha
6th insurrection. nine members of the fringe extremist group known as the oath keepers were either convicted or plead guilty to seditious conspiracy in two previous cases. it is difficult to overstate how rare these kinds of convictions are. it s really unusual for prosecutors to even bring charges of seditious conspiracy. it is even more unusual for them to successfully prosecute the cases. the government has not successfully prosecuted a case like this before january 6th since the early 1990s. and the last time the government even tried, prior to january 6th, was back in the early 2010s, when they tried a group of anti-government militia members who call themselves the hutaree. the fbi, along with local police and other federal agents swooped down in force over the weekend, arresting eight people, most of them in southern michigan, and a few in ohio and indiana. all were members of a militia militia group that called itself the hutarees, saying on their website that they believe
in preparing for an anti christ and in getting ready for to defending themselves. among the forces of evil the group believed was anyone in the government, beginning with local police. court documents say the group talked about ways to lure police for an attack and when one plan, they would kill a policeman, then bomb the officer s funeral procession. here s the thing about that case, it failed. the seditious conspiracy charges ended up getting drop against the hutaree in large part, because a case of seditious conspiracy is extraordinarily difficult to prove, even against people whose sentiments or beliefs are clearly anti government extremists. but the department of justice has met that very, very high bar with 14 of these pro trump militia members. the federal prosecutors, able to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that more than a dozen people conspired to violently overthrow the government, and what they believed to be, according to testimony in multiple trials, orders from donal
because you would never succeed. that is absurd. and in fact, the defense is often these, this is just a bunch of goofy guys, it was all talk. and so, you imagine the same kind of defense here. i think one of the things that makes this case more compelling, however, is that it was at the united states capitol and they were fighting hand to hand combat. i think one of the things is also the they actually got to a point closer than other cases. they were actually physically at the capitol, but as ryan said, the conviction of enrique tarrio, i think, is a really interesting point and makes this case unlike the oath keepers, a much more significant conviction because it extends it away from the capital to two planners. and as he said, and as i believe, it really ought to give merrick garland and jack smith the encouragement to think about people at the wood hotel war room or inside the oval office who might, likewise, have been planning things, even though they were in there at