MAGAt "1776" Convoy returns to DC, leader arrested on warrant from MD

On the 6th of July, what was originally an anti-vaccine mandate convoy but has morphed to a general far-right convoy returned to DC. Shortly after they arrived, their leader (a man known as "Santa") was arrested-on a warrant from MD. After the convoy blockaded part of I-95 on July 4, the MD authorities in a highly unusual stop obtained an arrest warrant for the known leader.

While removing a far-right extremist from the streets for the multi-day extradition process may seem like a win, it sets several ugly legal precedents. First of all, a street blockade with trucks does esssentially the same thing as a street blockade by locked-down protesters, save that arresting them at the scene might not be possible. Warrants following peaceful protests in the DC area HAVE happened before but are rare. It is also rare to attempt to serve warrants for offenses short of felonies (and especially traffic offenses however charged) across state lines in this way. The threat is that cops may be using a widely reviled fascist leader as the thin end of the wedge to normalize getting warrants for people they cannot catch at protests-and for ignoring jurisdictional boundaries.

Anything police departments will grudgingly do to fascists they will gladly do to progressives.