A new name has joined the ranks of American political prisoners. U.S. Justice Department prosecutors have charged the leader of a small right-wing organization, Oath Keepers, with “conspiracy” to storm Congress to obstruct the electoral vote counting procedure
Jessica Watkins, 38, was not involved in any pogrom, did not damage property in Congress and did not attack anyone. The feds themselves admit that. She just happened to have the wrong views and dared to spend time in Congress on the sixth of January.
That is now more than enough to find herself under investigation for “sedition”, for which prosecutors are asking for up to 20 years in prison. Already many lawyers have stressed that the sedition charges will not stand up to constitutional scrutiny and will be dropped later.
Now the U.S. Justice Department continues to use a vicious practice it developed back in the “witch hunt” era of “Russiagate”. If there is no real crime, you can just find a group of people, vaguely accuse them of “conspiracy” and build a big investigation on that.
Another growing malpractice is the intimidation of any political activists in the US with “the wrong views”: both reckless comments by BLM supporters and calls for street activism from the right.
It is very telling that just today a video from 2007 surfaced where Joe Biden talked about being arrested in the Congress building as a young man. He walked in past security, waited for the senators to leave and sat in the Senate President’s chair.
Biden then got off with a light fine. Now the people who sat in the same high chairs (well, and slightly trashed some offices) face years of whistleblowing and big prison sentences. Unlike the herbivores of the 70s, the screws in modern America are tightened to the limit.