In battle against far-right extremists, an old strategy re-emerges: Bankrupt them

SectionstvFeaturedMore From NBCFollow NBC NewsA 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. Hershenov said that could include the physical desecration to the Capitol, the cost of medical bills associated with the bodily injuries and mental trauma on members of the Metropolitan Police Department, as well as the economic harm to D.C. when businesses were temporarily closed.The financial toll on defendants could conceivably be in the millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars, Hershenov said.In the Charlottesville trial, nine plaintiffs won more than $25 million in financial compensation from about two dozen white supremacists, neo-Nazis and key organizers of the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally.While the jury in Charlottesville was deadlocked on whether the defendants engaged in a federal conspiracy as outlined under the Ku Klux Klan Act, the suit was successful in shutting down or hindering facets of their activities.One defendant, white nationalist Richard Spencer, said the suit had been "financially crippling" and he was "in a very difficult situation in terms of getting funds." A leader of another defendant, the League of the South, said the suit stalled its effort to fundraise for a new building in Alabama.Some defendants have said that they're leaving the white supremacist movement altogether, although there remains skepticism that will happen, said Amy Spitalnick, the executive director of Integrity First for America, the nonprofit civil rights organization that funded the Charlottesville suit.The suit's aim — to hold the defendants liable for the violence at the "Unite the Right" rally — was also effective when it came to going to trial because it forced white supremacists and white nationalists to appear in court and answer for what transpired."Others can see how they've been held accountable," Spitalnick said, "and they'll know that a lawsuit like ours will follow these defendants to the ends of the Earth to collect on them, to place liens on their homes, garnish their assets, whatever it takes."The Jan. 6 lawsuit, she said, can similarly highlight questions surrounding the groups' finances and flush out sources of income that may not have previously been known to the public.