The Other McCain

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The Conspiracy Theory at the Heart of the Capitol ‘Insurrection’ Prosecutions

Posted on | March 16, 2021 | Comments Off on The Conspiracy Theory at the Heart of the Capitol ‘Insurrection’ Prosecutions

Julie Kelly calls attention to the federal government’s case against Christopher Worrell of Cape Coral, Florida, as evidence that prosecutions of the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters are an attempt to criminalize political dissent. The feds do not even claim that Worrell entered the Capitol, but instead devote an enormous amount of effort to proving that Worrell (a) is a member of the Proud Boys and (b) sprayed pepper spray at a cop.

Let’s be clear: I am against pepper-spraying cops. However, there are a lot of Antifa who have done much worse than that, without being charged with federal felonies. So why did the FBI and the ATF raid Worrell to arrest him on felony charges? Julie Kelly explains:

Merrick Garland . . . said during his confirmation hearing the Capitol attack was “domestic terrorism” because the January 6 protestors attempted “to disrupt democratic processes.” . . .
Garland’s explanation, however absurd it sounds to the majority of Americans, bolsters one of the Justice Department’s most widely-used allegations in its Capitol investigation. More than 75 protestors now face one count of “obstruction of an official proceeding.”
The temporary disruption of Congress’ attempt to certify the Electoral College results, a task completed 13 hours after the chaos began, is repeatedly cited in charging documents as evidence of wrongdoing: “It [is] a crime to corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede any official proceeding—to include a proceeding before Congress—or make an attempt to do so,” several affidavits read.
But the government’s attempt to apply this vague law to defendants in the Capitol case is a stretch, to say the least. In several instances, it represents an enhancement charge to add a felony to mostly misdemeanor offenses.

The case against Worrell and other rioters relies on the assertion that what they intended was not merely a protest against what they believed to be a massive election fraud, but rather an actual effort to prevent certification of the election results — an “insurrection.”

It is for this reason that the feds have devoted such enormous efforts to identifying members of the protest crowd, including those who, like Christopher Worrell, apparently never even went inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. Probably it was his association with Proud Boys that made Worrell such a high-priority target of the FBI. The Proud Boys are an “extremist” group, according to the feds, and therefore every member who was in D.C. on Jan. 6 is apparently a focus in the “insurrection” investigation. But having met both Gavin McInnes and Enrique Tarrio, I don’t consider either of them to be terrorist threats, and the case for regarding them as such seems to rely on the dubious tautology that anyone who is an enemy of Antifa must be a fascist. In other words, the official position of the U.S. Justice Department seems to be that any organized opposition to Antifa is a terrorist group.

Again — I am against pepper-spraying cops, just as I am against overrunning police barricades and other actual breaches of law and order that took place on Jan. 6. But depicting that riot as part of a “domestic terrorist” threat requires a conspiracy theory mentality that I can’t accept, and is part of an obvious effort to suppress legitimate political dissent.

(Hat-tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)




 

Category: Crime

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