Here’s a stark way to restate why Donald Trump is unfit to lead the Republican Party, much less the nation: He promises “full pardons with an apology to many” of those who violently breached the Capitol to stop the peaceful transition of power to rightful victor Joe Biden. In stark contrast, the current administration’s Justice Department is holding the insurrectionists accountable.
While televised hearings by the congressional Jan. 6 Committee have galvanized public attention, it’s in the legal trenches that federal prosecutors have been building careful criminal cases. Tuesday, a jury found Oath Keepers head Stewart Rhodes and another top member of his organization guilty of the high crime of seditious conspiracy. (Three other Oath Keepers were acquitted on this highest charge but found guilty of other felonies.)
The U.S. Code defines that crime as when two or more people “conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof.”
