Rare sedition charge gains interest after Capitol attack

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https://hosted.ap.org/article/33304025f7a87cae4b53f145fdb4d056/rare-sedition-charge-gains-interest-after-capitol-attack

Jan. 15, 2021 12:57 PM EST
Rare sedition charge gains interest after Capitol attack
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A Civil War-era sedition law being dusted off for potential use in the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol was last successfully deployed a quarter-century ago in the prosecution of Islamic militants who plotted to bomb New York City landmarks.

An Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, and nine followers were convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy and other charges in a plot to blow up the United Nations, the FBI’s building, and two tunnels and a bridge linking New York and New Jersey.

Applications of the law making it a crime to conspire to overthrow or forcefully destroy the government of the United States have been scant. But its use is being considered against the mob that killed a police officer and rampaged through the U.S. Capitol last week.

Michael Sherwin, acting U.S. attorney for D.C., has said “all options are on the table,” including sedition charges, against the Capitol invaders.

“Certainly if you have an organized armed assault on the Capitol, or any government installation, it’s absolutely a charge that can be brought,” said Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who secured convictions at Abdel-Rahman’s 1995 trial.

Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at the Fordham University School of Law, said sedition charges in an attack against the center of U.S. government are even more appropriate than in the New York bombing plot.

“Of course we should use it here. That’s what this is, seditious conspiracy,” she said.