DOJ bureaucracy continues to undermine Attorney General’s efforts to curtail violent civil unrest

Attorney General William Barr is pushing for strong action to curtail the ongoing BLM/Antifa insurrection underway across America, while struggling against the bureaucracy within his own department which seems intent on minimizing and undercharging criminal activity.

The Wall Street Journal first reported via Department of Justice leaks that Barr suggested federal prosecutors consider prosecuting “seditious conspiracy,” among other serious federal felonies in response to ongoing civil unrest and violence. “Seditious conspiracy” refers to 18 U.S. Code § 2384, which reads:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

The Wall Street Journal cited anonymous “legal experts” to claim that the statute was not the appropriate legal tool, and impossible to employ. But former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, who played a key role in successfully prosecuting terrorist leader “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman on that very charge weighed in to disagree:

“If these forcible, lethally destructive acts are committed by people who are working together to make war against our country or attack our government, then seditious conspiracy is a perfectly apt offense to charge. It not only fits the conduct; it also allows prosecutors to charge the case in a framework that explains what the violent radicals are trying to accomplish. So Barr is right, and his critics’ arguments are as wrong…”

DOJ bureaucrats leaking these details simply because they oppose taking aggressive action against rioters is exactly the kind of circumstances Barr recently warned against. Speaking before an audience at a Hillsdale College dinner he asserted the importance of a Department of Justice which is led by the appointed attorney general and which is responsive to elected officials and not to unaccountable junior attorneys. Barr said:

“Line prosecutors, by contrast, are generally part of the permanent bureaucracy.  They do not have the political legitimacy to be the public face of tough decisions and they lack the political buy-in necessary to publicly defend those decisions.  Nor can the public and its representatives hold civil servants accountable in the same way as appointed officials.  Indeed, the public’s only tool to hold the government accountable is an election — and the bureaucracy is neither elected nor easily replaced by those who are.”

It is exactly these unelected bureaucrats who seek to undermine Attorney General Barr at the exact moment he is working to orient his department to take on the extensive challenge from a dangerous insurrectionist movement seeking to overthrow the U.S. Constitution.

Aggressive law enforcement is necessary to restore law and order in American cities. Attorney General Barr knows that.

He also likewise recognizes that for reasons of their own, the DOJ bureaucracy is hell-bent on hamstringing any such effort. America’s elected officials –from both parties—and the American public must make clear that they support efforts to return peace and safety to American streets and the aggressive prosecution of perpetrators of rioting, arson, and domestic terrorism.

Candlelight Vigil 2019-184 by Office of Public Affairs is licensed under CC BY 2.0