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January 6th agitator Ray Epps has pled guilty to one charge of disorderly conduct. The NYT story contains this sentence:
I'm not so sure about that. For those who haven't paid attention (a group that included myself until a discussion here a while back), Epps is on video repeatedly urging other members of the crowd to go into the Capitol. Many people have speculated that he was in fact some form of federal agent or informant. The fact that this is the legal outcome for him heightens, rather than lessens, my personal suspicion that he was working for the feds.
It is a very minor charge. Now granted, Epps did not enter the Capitol himself - but his open agitation of the attack nonetheless seems to me like it should constitute a significantly more serious offence, such as incitement to riot.
Speaking of which, it's very odd that he did not go into the Capitol himself, given that he loudly and repeatedly urged others to.
The fact that this minor charge plea deal has taken so long is very eyebrow raising as well. We typically saw the less serious cases dealt with quite quickly, while the big trials with serious jail time on the line took much longer - and even they got dealt with more quickly than Epps!
It's also extremely curious to me that they arranged a plea deal with Epps before he was ever charged with anything. That's not the normal way things go, as far as I'm aware - usually they throw everything they can at you, and then agree to drop some charges in exchange for guilty pleas for the others.
Now, it may be that there are matters of fact or law that I'm not aware of that makes all of this very normal and reasonable, and if so I would be delighted to be informed of them. But as it stands I am at a loss to explain how this guy is getting this treatment if he is not some kind of undercover operative.
EDIT: Thanks to @huadpe and @Gillitrut who have convinced me that the elements of more serious charges against Epps could probably not be satisfied.
Every time I’ve read the law for sedition leaves me with no idea how the law is constitutional. My reading it always comes up with just about anything qualifies as sedition. Oppose any law by force sounds like conspiracy. Therefore the law seems excessively broad and unconstitutional. Otherwise we should have a few 100k getting charged with this per year.
I guess writing law is hard. It’s tough to right something that applies to everything you want it to without being 5k pages of footnotes.
https://news.yahoo.com/news/brett-kavanaugh-protesters-ignore-police-194043428.html
This seemed like force was used. And obstructing a proceedings.
And I’m not sure what law you need to violate but something like punching a cop in a bar fight seems like it could qualify.
Or assaulting Rand Paul in the Capitol I would think violates some law.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8672681/BLM-protesters-gather-outside-White-House-Trumps-RNC-speech.html
And assaulting the federal building in Portland.
https://thepostmillennial.com/watch-antifa-attacks-sets-fire-to-federal-courthouse-in-portland
But none of these were charged under this statute. I believe sedition meaning is to overthrow the government and the purpose of the statute but it’s not written that specifically.
Quick question - would removing barricades count here? Say someone took down police barricades in a non-destructive way, just disassembled them. Would that qualify as destroying property? None of the components of the barrier were destroyed, just moved so that they failed to actually block the movement of people.
I was asking more specifically - would removing or simply moving a fence count as destruction? I'm legitimately unsure as to whether taking down a temporary fence counts as destruction, because you're technically removing the barrier but you're not actually destroying any property.
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