Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System

by Ryan J. Reilly

Public Affairs 480 pp.

By Paul Markowitz

The subtitle of the book may be a tad hyperbolic, but the story that Sedition Hunters details is frightening enough on its own. What is undeniably clear is that the U.S. justice system was totally unprepared for the events of January 6th.  What is also quite clear is that January 6th was a pivot point for American democracy.

The United States was unprepared for the events of that day, and equally unprepared to discover and bring to justice the culprits. Fortunately, there was a ragtag group of so-called amateurs from the internet who were able to piece together the story of January 6th.  Some of these amateur sleuths were in fact conservative Republicans who voted for Trump but were still appalled by what happened. These justice seekers were the “sedition hunters.”

The author begins to tell this underappreciated story by putting the events of January 6 in perspective. Ryan Reilly, a justice reporter for NBC News, takes us back to 9/11, when the FBI was given considerable leeway to investigate and try Islamic militants, despite the protections of the First Amendment. After the George Floyd Killing in Minneapolis, Bill Barr, the Attorney General, focused on Antifa. He wanted to file sedition charges against the violent demonstrators, and President Trump wanted criminal conspiracy charges, but the FBI did not find sufficient evidence. Throughout these decades, the FBI never considered the “rise of a mass movement supporting an aggrieved losing candidate” as a threat worth focusing on.

There were, however, reasons they should have. The 2020 election was not the first one in which issues of legitimacy emerged. Four years earlier, Trump never conceded that Hillary Clinton, whom he defeated, had in fact received more votes than he had. Trump's rhetoric had inspired extremists before and he had little regard for the law or political norms.

Reilly, who carefully reviewed FBI memos, phone calls, and other materials from after the 2020 election, shows that the bureau’s focus was elsewhere. It was more concerned with threats to the inauguration, on January 20th. The FBI’s Washington Field Office was not particularly concerned with reports of possible political violence, and the Justice Department was distracted by internal politics connected to the impending change in leadership.

There were, in fact, reports of potential problems but they were not considered specific enough. Law enforcement made some wrong calls: they had been gathering estimates of protestor turnout based on flights but people had been flooding in on buses. On January 6th itself things were relatively in hand until midday. Trump had been putting intense pressure on Vice-President Pence. At 1 p.m. Pence posted a letter stating "My oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not." 

Pence’s words seemed to have a powerful affect on the crowd. Suddenly, backup was being called, and FBI agents were escorting lawmakers to the underground tunnel. The battle at the capitol raged for two hours, during which a dozen officers were injured and one protestor was killed.

Much of this story has already been made public, though Reilly has expanded on it significantly with his sources among the Oathkeepers and Proud Boys. The part of the book that really shines is Reilly’s coverage of the titular “sedition hunters.” Right after January 6 there was a surge of investigations and arrests but they mostly netted obvious suspects. The FBI had received hundreds of thousands of tips, but it was swamped.

The Bureau’s initial estimate of 800 people involved in the attack on the capitol would soon soar to 3000. The FBI had neither the personnel nor the technology to track down all these people. It was helped immeasurably, however, by a cottage industry of online detectives that emerged. These sedition hunters, as they came to be known, worked out of their homes, using dating apps, Twitter posts, Facebook and video footage, and other online sources to track down the participants in the attack.  They would become, according to Reilly "the most effective tool of the FBI's Jan. 6 investigation."

The sedition hunters helped in other ways. The FBI and the Washington D.C. Metro Police had separate systems and hopelessly outdated technology. One of the sedition hunters, or "Deep State Dogs," developed an app that both forces could use to help identify the individuals who attacked the capitol. 

The FBI was effectively outsourcing its investigations to a group of online sleuths. The Justice Department began to rely on these freelance detectives more and more. Although the department had assured the public it had all the resources it needed, it outsourced videos to the sedition hunters, who had more up-to-date resources than the government’s 1990s technology.

Ultimately, with the help of the Sedition Hunters, in the first 6 months 500 arrests would be made and eventually 3000 individuals would be charged. 

This story of initiative and ingenuity is also a story of government deficiencies. More than 20 years ago the FBI director said the bureau was years behind on technology. Clearly this problem remained. The House Select Committee’s final report ended up focusing on Trump and not the failures of the January 6th investigation. The U.S. Government Accountability Office Report did note, however, that the FBI did not process tips or information from social media and it called for changes.

The pivotal role the sedition hunters played became clear at the trials of the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers. Their work helped to convict some of the main insurrectionists, such as Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oathkeepers who received an 18-year sentence.

The sedition hunters had spent 800 days on their mission before it was over. They had clearly left a mark on history. In this fascinating and compellingly written account of their work, Reilly helps to prove a newly coined adage: “you can outrun the cops, but you can never outrun the internet.”