CNN Claims Mob Harassment is First Amendment Right

Re today's GOPSUSA article “CNN Claims Mob Harassment is First Amendment Right”, check this out from the Daily Signal's J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department lawyer, asserting that the threats and interruptions of Senate business amount to a federal crime. “These are not protesters. It’s a crime to disrupt the U.S. Senate,” Adams told The Daily Signal. “The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jessie Liu, needs to start enforcing criminal law.” “If the law isn’t enforced, it’s going to keep happening and get worse. It won’t stop at the Senate; they’ll disrupt the Supreme Court, too,” Adams said. Such behavior is punishable upon conviction by a maximum of six months in prison, he said. Adams referred to U.S. Code 4, Section 5104, which says in part:

Violent entry and disorderly conduct.—An individual or group of individuals may not willfully and knowingly … enter or remain in the gallery of either House of Congress in violation of rules governing admission to the gallery adopted by that House or pursuant to an authorization given by that House … with the intent to disrupt the orderly conduct of official business … utter loud, threatening, or abusive language, or engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place in the Grounds or in any of the Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress[.]