Speaker 1: We have major news in terms of the more than 700 cases against the alleged Trump rioters,
there's more than 700 total cases. Now, in one of the things we've been wondering waiting for
is thinking about is will there be more serious charges? A lot of the charges, even though
collectively this was an attempted insurrection, this coup to install the guy who lost in the White
House, that was the general point of it. To really charge people with anything even remotely close to
that requires pretty. You've got a close to have these people dead to rights and really be able to
prove what they intended in participating in those riots. And that's really tough. We've talked about
perjury. People perjure themselves all the time in court, using the term perjury colloquially. But
proving perjury is quite difficult and you really don't see even a small fraction of instances of
perjury actually prosecuted. A lot of the stuff we're talking about with January 6th, including
sedition, is quite difficult to prove, and thus it makes it. It makes it tough to say we're going
to charge people with that. That has now changed and things are changing very, very dramatically.
The leader of the Oath Keepers and ten other individuals have been indicted in federal court
for seditious conspiracy and other offenses related to the U.S. Capitol breach. This is
sort of a crossing of the Rubicon when it comes to the Jan. six riots, and the Justice Department
publication says that a federal grand jury in D.C. returned an indictment charging 11 defendants with
seditious conspiracy. One of the main charges here is a guy named Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the third,
a 56 year old Texan who is the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers. That's a right wing militia
type group. Rhodes was arrested in Texas. Another another guy, Edward Viejo, 63, also charged
with seditious conspiracy. A bunch of other previously named defendants have been charged.
Eight other individuals affiliated with the Oath Keepers have been charged in the investigation,
and they remain as defendants in two related cases. These are really, really serious
charges. The seditious conspiracy indictment alleges that following the 2020 election,
Rhodes conspired with co-defendants to oppose by force the execution of the laws governing the
transfer of presidential power by January 20th. They, via encrypted and private communications,
coordinated and planned to travel to D.C. around January 6th. To bring weapons to
support their operation. They did travel and they conspired through a variety of manners in means,
including organizing into teams prepared to use force to transport firearms and ammunition. They
recruited people. They organized trainings to teach and learn paramilitary combat tactics
on and on and on with the point of preventing the lawful transfer of presidential power.
These are really, really serious charges and a sort of I don't know that we would call this
funny. But one of the things that the right has been saying, and Tucker has been saying this and
other Fox News host and others saying if this was an insurrection coup, if they were doing sedition,
why haven't they been charged with that? In fact, just hours before the charges?
Fox News dude Brit Hume, although to be honest, I don't even know if he's still at Fox News,
but Brit Hume, who for a long time was that he is still a political analyst on Fox News.
He tweeted, Here's a thought let's base our view on whether one six was an insurrection on whether
those arrested are charged with insurrection. So far, none has been within hours charges
for seditious conspiracy to prevent a peaceful transfer of power. I had tweeted, So I guess
they were waiting on the more serious charges. And a CNN legal analyst, Asuran GOPer, said I
don't think they were waiting. The more serious charges are also more complex and can take longer
to gather evidence and put together. If you look at the indictment, it is incredibly detailed and
you can't get that information overnight. So as Vox has now reported, these charges really change
the whole feel of the riots. Vox writing Seditious conspiracy occurs when two or more people work
together to plan to overthrow the government or the X, or prevent the execution of its laws,
and that now on the basis of these charges. This has really stepped things up
before we had seen disorderly conduct, obstructing an official proceeding before Congress.
And even there, we've seen sentences close to four years. Seditious conspiracy carries
a potential sentence of 20 years in prison. And importantly, these new charges refute the argument
that the entire riots were overblown. That's been a story we hear from many right wingers.
This is all overblown. It wasn't an attempted coup, was it an attempted insurrection and
nobody's been charged with anything like that. Well, now they have, and we may see we may see
instead of form one month sentences. We could see 10 12, potentially up to 20, but probably not
year sentences. And that completely changes the entire story about what happened on Jan. six.
Could there be even more serious charges? Maybe. Maybe we're going to wait and see. Let me know
your thoughts. You can find me on Twitter at David Pakman and tell me what you think
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