Everyone's talking this morning about the 60 Minutes interview with Michael Sherwin and Scott Pelwin last night about the possible prosecution of Capitol Hill attackers for sedition.
PELLEY: Do you anticipate sedition charges against some of these suspects?
SHERWIN: I believe the facts do support those charges, and I think that as we go forward, more facts will support that, Scott.
"That's Michael Sherwin, the former top prosecutor investigating the Capitol insurrection. He says in this new interview on 60 Minutes the evidence the government has seen is likely to meet the bar to charge some insurrectionists with sedition. What's the significance here?" John Berman asked former FBI assistant director Andrew McCabe.
"Sedition is a federal crime that basically says anyone who seizes by force the property of the United States government or who impedes or blocks the execution of a U.S. law can be guilty of sedition. Now, in this case, the U.S. law would, of course, but the Constitution itself which specifies the process upon which we certify the election of our United States president. So quite frankly, John, to think that we don't have abundant evidence of sedition here is amazing to me, and I'm kind of shocked that they haven't charged some of these folks with sedition yet," McCabe said.
"Thank you, Andy. I appreciate you saying that," Alysin Camerota said. "How is this not an open-and-shut case? if you read by definition, they want to close the government or oppose authority. That's exactly what they were trying to do, by their own words."
"That's exactly what they were doing, Alisyn. We saw it. It was not just on 1/6. You have the statements they made about it on social media and to their associates and things like that. The fact we haven't seen those charges yet is really remarkable and it may be an indication there's more kind of legal debate about that within the Justice Department we're not aware of."
"Michael Sherwin was also pressed on the former president's role in perhaps inciting the insurrection and whether he could face any criminal charges. This is how he answered it."
"He didn't answer the second part. What's your answer to that?"
"He said there's no question the president summoned them and incited them, but it comes down to the perspective of the people involved. Some said, yes, they went to the Capitol because the president told them to. That would be strong evidence of incitement on the president's part, but others said they feel he's responsible because he didn't go far enough to stop it. The fact that you do have some people who very clearly admit they went there and undertook those acts because they thought the president told them to, that for me seals the deal on incitement with respect to those folks," McCabe said.
"I've been saying from the beginning that I thought the president could very well be held responsible for inciting the crime of violence, that crime of violence being sedition. The question is, does the Justice Department have the commitment to that prosecution to bring a tough legal case, but also a very politically charged legal case."
