Federal suit targeting Jan. 6 extremist groups goes for the jugular: Their finances

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

A federal lawsuit filed last month seeking monetary damages from two far-right groups, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, and their senior members linked to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was designed with an ambitious goal in mind: to impinge on their financial earnings and snuff out their operations.

"If it so happens we bankrupt them, that's a good day," Karl Racine, the attorney general of Washington, D.C., who is partnering with other organizations in the suit, said at a news conference last month.

Now, the civil case is taking shape as the federal government's sprawling criminal investigation into the Capitol attack ensnared a prominent figure of the movement on Thursday, Oath Keepers leader and founder Stewart Rhodes, who was arrested on a charge of seditious conspiracy.

Whether the group will survive in its current form remains to be seen, but the objective in Racine's suit will test the limits in the fight against far-right extremists. The legal strategy behind it was used as recently as last November in the civil trial in Charlottesville, Virginia, against organizers of the far-right rally that erupted in deadly violence in 2017.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/battle-against-far-extremists-old-093212131.html

[SheltieLover]

1. Excellent! 👏👏👏👏

Cut them off at the knees!

[malaise]

2. Thanks to a DUer I just discovered that the Oath Keepers

is literally a private business - bankrupt it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. My happy discovery is that Rhodes' first name is....Elmer.

😆😆😆😆

And the knowledge that the Southern Poverty Law Center bankrupted the KKK, so there is precedence.

[malaise]

15. Nice

Happy New Year! How are you these days:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. I am definitely on board with this! Get them where it hurts, a lot! n/t

[Jilly_in_VA]

4. Good job!

Hit 'em where they live---right in the pocketbook! And find out just where that money comes from, too.

[Chainfire]

5. Those types of groups are like roaches. Knock them down and two weeks later their eggs hatch.

That said, I still think that it is a good idea to treat them like a subject of the Steppenwolf song The Pusher:

Well, now if I were the president of this land
You know, I'd declare total war on The Pusher man
I'd cut him if he stands, and I'd shoot him if he'd run
Yes I'd kill him with my Bible and my razor and my gun
God damn The Pusher

[lpbk2713]

6. I see nothing wrong with this.

Make the vandals pay for their damages and for the labor it took to clean up their mess.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. These lawsuit work

Link to tweet

[bucolic_frolic]

8. I don't see how

these peeps will ever return to normal civilian life.

[crickets]

9. Fantastic! Go get 'em. K&R

[RicROC]

10. I hope this also includes the wife of Clarence Thomas.

[thenelm1]

11. If I remember correctly, it was one or more of this type lawsuit...

that broke some of the more well-known Klan groups back in the 1980s.

[Pinback]

13. Correct. As the article notes,

the Southern Poverty Law Center pioneered this type of lawsuit to great effect.

[Sherman A1]

12. Super

I wish them well.