A total of 31 Patriot Front members, including one identified as its founder, were arrested in 2022 after someone reported seeing people loading into a U-Haul van like “a little army.”
“Conspiracy to riot?”
From the sounds of it, it sounded more like domestic terrorism, politically and hate motivated conspiracy to riot and inciting riot, as well as a plan to physically assault a large amount of people as a militarized terrorist cell.
Conspiracy to riot? What in the fuck get out of terrorism white nationalist bullshit is this? The USA is fucking fubar.
Literally this, actually. There is no such crime as “domestic terrorism.” It literally does not exist on the books. It’s an undefined term that has no statute attached to it.
That’s why you see so much stuff where white supremacists get charged with “conspiracy to riot” and such. It’s about creating double standards and propaganda through the law.
“Conspiracy to riot” is what the Yippies were charged with in Chicago '68, by the way.
Often these disappointing charges have nothing to do with what makes sense. Prosecutors aim as high as they think they go. If they’re not aiming high enough, it’s because they don’t think they can win.
Also, when you dig past the headlines, and really see what came out in court, it’s often a FAR different story. One famous case, which escapes me, was a cop getting off for seemingly executing a black man on a traffic stop. Once the evidence and testimony were heard in court, well, it wasn’t what we all thought. Cop wasn’t justified BTW, but I can see why the jury voted not guilty.
Maybe this is such a case? They needed $X to hang them with terrorism, but $X wasn’t present or provable? And conspiracy to riot was a slam dunk?
So yeah, I’ll take a win against these dirt bags vs. a loss on a terrorism charge.
OTOH, there have been plenty of Americans convicted of terrorism on, seemingly, the thinnest of evidence. Prosecutors LOVE getting that terrorism conviction, looks good, so what’s up here?
I suspect it’s that American jurors won’t see “white” as “terrorist”, and that’s on us Americans, not the prosecutors. Pretty funny as, when I was a kid, it was the European terrorist factions that were prevalent. Baader-Meinhof Gang, Red Army Faction, IRA, all that.
