Rep. Andy Biggs calls on AG Barr to use RICO to crack down on rioters

Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs urged Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray to use federal racketeering laws to find out who’s behind the riots in U. S. cities and how they may be funded.

Under RICO, investigators “can go in and find out who’s organizing this stuff, who’s coordinating these things and they could start seizing assets,” said Biggs, a Republican who sits on the House Judiciary Committee.

Biggs, appearing Thursday on “Outnumbered Overtime,” said he’s “a big believer that if you make arrests and you prosecute … you actually slow down some of this unlawfulness that’s going on out there.”

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act is a federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.

Racial justice protests, which sometimes devolve into riots with looting and arson, were sparked by the death of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis police custody. Since Floyd’s death in May there has been a growing push to defund or dismantle police departments in cities across the country.

Biggs penned an op-ed that appeared in the Washington Examiner on Wednesday titled, “The loss of humanity on our streets is obv... (Read more)

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