Writing about the seditious conspiracy trials now underway in Federal Court, Salon's Amanda Marcotte notes the sudden turn by the fascist paramilitary Oath Keepers from macho to meek to duck responsibility for the January 6 violent Trumpist insurrection:
"The defendants are charged not just with trespassing or trying to obstruct an official proceeding, like so many of the insurrectionists before them. They are facing the more serious charges of seditious conspiracy, so the extent of serious planning matters. To prove the charges, the prosecutor needs to show not just that the defendants stormed the Capitol, but that they conspired together to overthrow the government. The defense wants to convince the jury that the Oath Keepers happened to be in Washington D.C. for reasons other than insurrection, arguing that they only stormed the Capitol because they got swept up in the moment. [snip]
They said the thing and did the thing, so it seems like the prosecution would have an open-and-shut case, right? But there's a good reason the defense thinks an 'it was just talk' argument will work. Conservative white people generally get a generous benefit of the doubt when it comes to determining whether they really mean the terrible things they say. Like Donald Trump dismissing it as "locker room talk" when he was caught bragging about sexual assault, the presumption of innocence for conservative white people is so robust it's often extended even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Evidence uncovered by both the January 6 committee and the various federal prosecutions of insurrectionists has demonstrated this. Both the FBI and the Secret Service received tips in the weeks before the insurrection, indicating there were people planning to storm the Capitol, but those tips were ignored. During the Oath Keepers trial, prosecutors revealed the FBI was specifically tipped off about this particular alleged conspiracy, but that tip was also ignored. While there may have been more sinister reasons for the Secret Service to blow off the tips, mostly it seems that law enforcement was oblivious. They simply didn't take seriously the possibility that all this online chatter was building toward real violence. They assumed people were just playing around." (our emphasis)
There's probably never been a more convincing case for seditious conspiracy than the one being prosecuted by the Justice Department against this un-American group, given all the videos, text messages, speeches and other hard evidence of intent, planning, and execution. That won't stop these cowardly, delusional traitors from attempting to claim it was all just "macho" talk. Now that the Justice Department has the goods on the foot soldiers, they need to go after their Commanding General.
