Bill Barr Says DOJ Prosecutors Should Bring Sedition Charges Against Violent Protesters

Legal Issues

from the what-even-the-fuck dept

If Attorney General Bill Barr is ever gifted with superlatives, the one that will stick will be “worst.”

After presiding over some civil liberties violations under Bush I, Barr has returned to AG work under Trump and seems dead set on making everyone forget his first reign of far-more-limited terror. Barr wants encryption backdoors, the end of Section 230 immunity, and law enforcement officers promoted to the rank of demigod. The public will be expected to absorb the collateral damage.

Bill Barr does know how to deliver a good speech, whether he’s preaching to the converted or, in this recent speech, preaching to some developing converts. Speaking to Hillsdale College students during their Constitution Day event, Barr said he’s trying to build a kinder, gentler DOJ.

In exercising our prosecutorial discretion, one area in which I think the Department of Justice has some work to do is recalibrating how we interpret criminal statutes.

In recent years, the Justice Department has sometimes acted more like a trade association for federal prosecutors than the administrator of a fair system of justice based on clear and sensible legal rules. In case after case, we have advanced and defended hyper-aggressive extensions of the criminal law. This is wrong and we must stop doing it.

[…]

To be clear, what I am describing is not the Al Capone situation — where you have someone who committed countless crimes and you decide to prosecute him for only the clearest violation that carries a sufficient penalty. I am talking about taking vague statutory language and then applying it to a criminal target in a novel way that is, at a minimum, hardly the clear consequence of the statutory text.

This is definitely something that could use improvement. The DOJ has engaged in plenty of bad-faith, overly-aggressive prosecutions. Almost anything involving the CFAA comes to mind.

But Barr can’t lead this reform. He doesn’t even really want it. As he was delivering this speech about prosecutorial discretion, news broke detailing the contents of a phone call Barr had with DOJ prosecutors:

Attorney General William Barr expressed frustration with some local and state prosecutors’ handling of riot-related crimes, telling top Justice Department prosecutors that he wants them to be aggressive in bringing charges related to protest violence, including exploring using a rarely used sedition law, according to a person familiar with the matter.

This isn’t discretion. This is [checks Barr’s Constitution Day speech] a “hyper-aggressive extension of criminal law,” the “taking” of “vague statutory language and applying it to a criminal target in a novel way.” Barr’s not going to practice what he preached at Hillsdale College and he doesn’t want his prosecutors engaging in restraint either.

Proving sedition is difficult. That’s why we haven’t historically charged violent protesters with sedition. There are a bunch of other federal and local statutes that capably address acts of violence or vandalism. There’s no reason federal prosecutors should start pretending violence or vandalism occuring during/adjacent to anti-police brutality protests is a conspiracy to overthrow the government or “oppose by force” federal laws and statutes. There has only been one successful sedition prosecution in the last 25 years. It seems unlikely using this law to ensure protest-related prosecutions are federal is going to work.

But that’s not all. Barr also wanted DOJ prosecutors to find some way to go after Seattle’s mayor over her handling of protests in her city.

Attorney General William Barr asked Justice Department prosecutors to explore charging Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) over a protest zone in the city, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Barr asked prosecutors in the department’s civil rights division to explore charging Durkan during a call with prosecutors last week, the Times reported citing two people briefed on those discussions.

Barr’s nice words about dialing back aggressive prosecutions were aimed solely at DOJ prosecutors who have made the mistake of going after Trump or his underlings in the administration. Barr doesn’t care about the victims of over-prosecution who don’t have connections to the White House. Those people are still on their own and still subject to the whims of prosecutors who have been given free reign to interpret the law for maximum prosecutorial efficiency. Barr said the quiet part loud later in his Hillsdale speech:

Rather than root out true crimes — while leaving ethically dubious conduct to the voters — our prosecutors have all too often inserted themselves into the political process based on the flimsiest of legal theories. We have seen this time and again, with prosecutors bringing ill-conceived charges against prominent political figures, or launching debilitating investigations that thrust the Justice Department into the middle of the political process and preempt the ability of the people to decide.

On one hand, this is a sickening display of sycophancy. On the other hand, it will save the taxpayers some money. No sense wasting time prosecuting someone Trump’s just going to pardon.

Barr’s day of awfulness finally came to end with this unbelievably hot take in response to a student’s question about COVID-19 lockdowns. There’s no way to really brace yourself for his response:

“You know, putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders, is like house arrest. Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history,” Barr said as a round of applause came from the crowd.

The Greatest Intrusion. Well. OK then.

Bill Barr can no longer be satirized. He’d be an unsubtle farce capable of gathering only the cheapest laughs if he wasn’t actually in charge of the goddamn Department of Justice. This makes him frightening, rather than pitiable.

Filed Under: doj, law enforcement, protests, sedition, william barr