Andrew McCarthy: Laws against rioting and terrorism must be enforced against Antifa and other violent radicals | Fox News

This is why Attorney General Barr s mention of the violent agenda of the rioters pinged my antennae. We prosecuted the so-called Blind Sheikh (the late Omar Abdel Rahman) and his subordinates using a Civil War-era statute that criminalizes seditious conspiracy.

This rarely invoked penal law targets conspiracies to levy war against the United States, or to forcibly oppose or overthrow our government. The key element is violence either its use or planned use. That is the attribute that fundamentally distinguishes legitimate protest from insurrection.

The attorney general also pointed out in his statement that it is a federal crime to cross state lines or use interstate facilities in order to incite or participate in rioting. Indeed it is, and this also raises the specter of federal racketeering laws.

We think of these principally as a vehicle for prosecuting organized crime groups. But they actually apply to any enterprise, which is simply an association of some kind. It could be informal and secretive, like a Mafia family or a drug cartel; or it could a more formal entity (racketeering laws have been applied to corporations, guilds, political parties, labor unions, and so on).

via www.foxnews.com