Weltschmerz à GogoThis article is from last February, but I guess I missed it at the time, and it's still relevant. The upshot: federal agents will never be our friends (no matter what your favorite cool kid podcaster says). They may take down some awful people when it serves their own objectives, but their objectives don't include other people's liberation, and particularly not the liberation of populations targeted by white nationalist groups like Patriot Front.
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“The prosecution in Coeur d'Alene finally had an opportunity to hold them accountable for their harassment and their intimidation of the diverse community,” Tischauser said.
Instead, Rousseau’s case never got to trial.
While most of Rousseau’s underlings have either been found guilty of conspiracy to riot or pleaded to a lesser infraction, Judge John Cafferty dismissed the case against the white nationalist leader in November.
“This is an important case. It should not be dismissed lightly,” Cafferty said, according to court transcripts. “I tried to do what I could to not get to this point.”
But after a year and a half of delays, lost evidence and failures of prosecutors to follow court orders, he said he didn’t have a choice. The prosecutors, on the other hand, blamed judges and defense attorneys for the case devolving “into a forum for fishing expeditions justified by nothing more than bumper sticker claims.”
In all, it highlights just how difficult it is for an overwhelmed and understaffed team of prosecutors to take on a case involving so many extremists at once.
It’s one reason why, Kris Goldsmith, head of an anti-fascist research organization, said the Patriot Front case should not have been handled by local prosecutors to begin with.
“Expecting a city prosecutor to take on a national white supremacist organization is disappointing,” Goldsmith said. “The FBI is just sitting on their hands.”
In fact, court documents suggest, the FBI made prosecuting Patriot Front a lot harder.
#acab #fascism #PatriotFront #ThomasRousseau #CoeurDAlene #Idaho #FBI
