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The seditious conspiracy charges brought by the Justice Department on Thursday against the leader of the Oath Keepers and other members of the right-wing group signal the government is prepared to take on an ambitious fight to show that they joined the Jan. 6, 2021, attack as part of a coordinated effort to deny President Biden the White House. The indictment contains the first sedition charges that have been brought following the riot and mark a significant escalation in prosecutors’ efforts by drawing a connection between the physical acts of mayhem that day and the broader effort by former President...

The I-Team has learned that several members of a Midwestern militia group who were acquitted of plotting to overthrow the government are suing the law enforcement officials who arrested them. The Hutaree Christian Militia was accused of planning to trigger revolution by first killing law enforcement officers. A year after being cleared of those charges, several Hutaree members are attacking the government on a different front. ABC7 News has learned they have filed a federal suit against the very law enforcement officers who originally arrested them, charging a violation of their constitutional rights among other things, to bear arms. Tom...

The leader of an anti-government militia in Alaska who proclaimed that "God's law" trumps "man's law" was sentenced on Tuesday to nearly 26 years in prison for a plot to kill government employees he portrayed as his enemies.

Thomas Piatek, member of the Hutaree militia, was charged with plotting to kill police officers and overthrow the government, but was acquitted by a judge in March who cited insuffient evidence. An admitted militiaman got 41 guns and more than 100,000 rounds of ammunition back from the government Friday. The guns were confiscated when Thomas Piatek and six other members of the Hutaree militia were arrested in 2009 on charges that they planned to kill police officers and overthrow the government. He was acquitted in March, when a federal judge, Victoria Roberts, found there was insufficient evidence in the case....

Three members of a Michigan Hutaree militia group are getting back 60 guns between them, including rifles, handguns, shotguns, and AK47s. Thomas Piatek, Tina Stone, and Michael Meeks were arrested as part of an FBI raid because of their involvement in plotting an anti-government revolt. The courts determined that the state was unable to prove its case, so these three and several others were acquitted and set free. Now that they're out of custody they're ready to get their weapons back. Piatek's attorney, Arthur Weiss, explains that Piatek still has a Second Amendment right to own those firearms and the...

“A federal judge acquitted seven members of the Hutaree militia Tuesday of the most serious charges following six weeks of testimony in a high-profile terror case,” The Detroit News reported yesterday. On the second anniversary of the Hutaree arrests, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts granted a defense motion to acquit the militia members on seven charges, including seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. Still open are some weapons charges “against Hutaree leader David Stone Sr. and his son.” It’s a stunning defeat for Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department, which made great media hay of the...

The primary mission of this department is to prevent terrorist attacks on our nation. The document on right-wing extremism sent last week by this department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis is one in an ongoing series of assessments to provide situational awareness to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies on the phenomenon and trends of violent radicalization in the United States. I was briefed on the general topic, which is one that struck a nerve as someone personally involved in the Timothy McVeigh prosecution.

DETROIT — A federal judge on Tuesday gutted the government’s case against seven members of a Michigan militia, dismissing the most serious charges in an extraordinary defeat for federal authorities who insisted they had captured homegrown rural extremists poised for war. U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts said the members’ expressed hatred of law enforcement didn’t amount to a conspiracy to rebel against the government. The FBI had secretly planted an informant and an FBI agent inside the Hutaree militia starting in 2008 to collect hours of anti-government audio and video that became the cornerstone of the case.

DETROIT — A federal judge dismissed the most serious charges Tuesday against seven members of a Michigan militia who were rounded up as homegrown extremists accused of plotting war against the U.S., saying their expressed hatred of law enforcement didn’t amount to conspiracy against the government. The decision is an embarrassment for the government, which secretly planted an informant and an FBI agent inside the Hutaree militia four years ago and claimed members were armed for war in rural southern Michigan.

Huron, OH militia, aka Hutaree Friday, May 13, 2011 Federal prosecutors believe one of nine members of a Lenawee County based militia is not mentally competent to stand trial. Tuesday, June 22, 2010 A federal appeals court says five members of a Michigan-based militia will stay in jail while awaiting trial on many charges, including conspiracy to overthrow the government. Tuesday, June 08, 2010 A federal appeals court in Ohio will hear arguments on whether five members of a Michigan-based militia should stay in jail until they're tried on charges of plotting to overthrow the government.

An Adrian gun dealer who gained national media attention after federal prosecutors alleged he was affiliated with Hutaree militia members, was acquitted of a gun charge Thursday by a federal jury in Detroit, court records show. Walter Priest, 53, the owner of Gun Outfitters LLC was found not guilty of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. He was accused of selling a rifle with a partial serial number to a Lansing area man on July 4, 2008. Priest was indicted in April and was out on a $100,000 unsecured bond. “I’m thrilled,” Priest said. “The power of the...

An appeals court has reversed a lower court ruling to free all Hutaree militia members pending trial. From The Michigan Messenger: A three-judge panel for the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a lower court ruling granting a release on bond for the five remaining members of the Hutaree 9 still in custody pending a trial on charges of seditious conspiracy. But it was not a unanimous decision for two of the members: The appeals court was partially divided, with all three judges agreeing that David and Joshua Stone and Michael Meeks should be held in jail pending trial....

Reuters is reporting new charges added by the prosecution against the Hutaree: The new 15-count indictment adds several weapons-related charges not contained in the previous indictment against the militia group. What kind of weapons? The new indictment adds 10 weapons charges including possession of machineguns and unregistered rifles and use of firearms during a violent crime. According to the new indictment federal agents seized from defendants' homes in March machineguns, unregistered short-barreled rifles and over 148,000 rounds of ammunition, as well as "a variety of explosives and related items capable of being readily assembled to build several types of destructive...

Kristopher T. Sickles (AP/Paul Sancya) "Three of nine members of a Midwest militia accused of conspiring to overthrow the government were released from jail Tuesday," reports Ed White of the Associated Press. And now today, a fourth member, Kristopher T. Sickles of Ohio has been released. Read the initial story here and the follow-up here. Then assess these developments in light of what we've discussed here at Gun Rights Examiner recently: Court: Hutaree to stay jailed for now Why would prosecutor 'misrepresent' conditions of Hutaree bond release? Hutaree release blocked—for how long? Does freeing of Hutaree on bond tell us...

Members of the Hutaree militia accused of conspiracy to commit sedition must remain behind bars pending pretrial release arguments. From The Associated Press: The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, said Monday that it was continuing a temporary stay of a Detroit federal judge’s decision to free members of the militia pending trial. For how long? Per the Detroit Free Press: Federal prosecutors, who appealed the decision of U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts, have until May 17 to file arguments and defense lawyers have until May 24. Lawyers on both sides also can request to...

Flash back to the end of March, when the authorities hauled in nine members of the Hutaree, a Christian paramilitary group, and charged them with plotting a mass assassination of police officers. The media quickly added the arrests to the ongoing narrative of "rising right-wing violence," with the Michigan-based militants cast as the leading edge of a smoldering paramilitary threat. Newscasters and columnists touted a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) claiming that the number of anti-government "Patriot" organizations is skyrocketing. An "astonishing 363 new Patriot groups appeared in 2009," the center declared, "with the totals going from...

As Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistan-born American, grabbed international headlines last week for an alleged terrorism attempt in New York's Times Square, other suspected terrorists received much less media coverage as they appeared before a judge in Detroit. The judge ruled that all nine white, American-born members of the Hutaree Christian militia group, charged with conspiracy to commit sedition and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, should be released on bail while awaiting trial. Federal authorities charged that the militia intended to kill a police officer and then detonate improvised explosive devices at the officer's funeral in the hope of...

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Waterstreet, "Hutaree’s central goal, … commit some violent act to draw the attention of law enforcement or government officials which would prompt a response by law enforcement… "Leader David Stone Sr. preached the need for an uprising against the government. “There is no requirement that the United State establish that there was an imminent harm, Rather, that it must simply show an agreement to oppose by force the authority of the United States.” Today, the Government filed a Notice of Appeal (Doc. #143). The Government (has) failed to persuade the Court that Defendants must be detained...

In a very interesting and highly unusual development, a court official from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has filed an affidavit with the appeals court disputing claims made by the government prosecutors in their court filings in the Hutaree case. Alan H. Murray, the Chief Pretrial Services Officer for the Eastern District of Michigan, filed the document to correct a claim made by the prosecutors in one of their briefs arguing that the Hutaree 9 should be denied bond and kept in jail pending trial. Specifically, the prosecutors have asserted that the “home detention” provision...

On Monday we discussed a federal judge granting bond for alleged members of the Hutaree militia group, after the lead FBI agent in charge of the investigation could not remember details of the case to recount in court. Their release has been halted. From Courthouse News Service: The 6th Circuit on Thursday temporarily blocked the release of nine members of a militia group accused of plotting to kill police officers and attempting to use weapons of mass destruction. ...[T]he Cincinnati-based federal appeals court granted the government's emergency motion, "pending further review and order of the court." Why? "They pose a...