"The thing is that we're being told about traces of Novichok on a bottle, but specialists say that, if there were actually traces of Novichok on the bottle, at least those who touched it or were standing nearby would have been exposed," Peskov said.

"This goes against the conclusions drawn by experts. If there was a bottle, then why was it taken away? Perhaps someone has no interest in holding an investigation. There is too much in this story that is absurd, which keeps us from believing these statements without proof," he added.

When it comes to Russia, the mainstream Western media operates in a self-contained pit of rumor, fear, braggadocio, bulls**t, and propaganda. Thus its correspondents have treated the Navalny case in a predictable fashion: Any pronouncements from the opposition figure's associates, and the German government - even when contradictory or scarcely believable - are treated like gospel truth, but anything Russian officials say is immediately disparaged.

Before Thursday, the most blatant example of this came on September 9, when, to quote Max Seddon, a Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times, "Germany apparently concluded (that) Navalny was poisoned with a substance 'that the world did not know until this attack, but which is more malicious and deadly than all known offshoots of the Novichok family,' and that Russian security must have done it."

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has accused the Trump administration of using the Justice Department as a "political weapon," following a report that the DOJ may charge her for allowing protesters to take over part of the city in June.

Addressing a story published in the New York Times on Wednesday - which claimed Attorney General Bill Barr had asked prosecutors to consider criminal charges for the Democratic mayor - Durkan said the "chilling" report only proved the administration had politicized the Department of Justice, deeming Barr's request an "act of tyranny."

While the Times report relied on nameless sources - who it said refused to go on record "because they feared retribution" - the story also noted that Barr had recommended prosecutors consider sedition charges for those caught committing violent crimes amid ongoing protests around the country.

In Durkan's case, the sources said Barr suggested criminal charges in relation to an "autonomous zone" established by protesters in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood in June - what came to be known as the "Capitol Hill Occupied Protest," or CHOP.

• Seattle Mayor Durkan refers to CHAZ as a 'block party', plans to let anarchists enjoy their 'summer of love'
• Seattle fail: CHOP zone barricades still intact, city slapped with ANOTHER lawsuit
• Seattle protesters occupy city hall, demand Mayor Durkan's resignation
• Seattle police chief asks why black people keep dying in the 'Black Lives Matter' CHOP zone
• Crime reports 5 times higher in CHOP zone from 'narcotics use and violent crime'
• If Seattle really thought Black Lives Matter, it would shut down CHOP chaos

In a conference call last week, Attorney General Bill Barr urged federal prosecutors to be aggressive in filing charges against violent anti-American radicals who are rioting in various cities, attacking government buildings, and targeting law-enforcement officers. The AG reportedly recommended a range of offenses, including seditious conspiracy.

Instantly, according to the Wall Street Journal, "legal experts" warned that the "rarely used statute could be difficult to prove in court and potentially run up against First Amendment protections."

These are the same arguments that legal experts posited when I charged terrorists with seditious conspiracy for bombing the World Trade Center and plotting to bomb other New York City landmarks in 1993. The experts were wrong then, and they are wrong now.

The seditious-conspiracy statute, which is codified by Section 2384 of the modern federal penal code, was actually enacted by Congress during the Civil War — mainly to deal with Confederate sympathizers in free states who were violently sabotaging the Union war effort. As the Journal's experts observe, it is rarely used. That is not because the crime is especially difficult to prove; it is much more straightforward than many federal crimes. Rather, it is because the conduct at issue — dangerous conspiracies to levy war against the United States, to violently overthrow our government, or to violently oppose the government's legitimate authority — is historically unusual.

Notice the thread that runs through these variations of conspiratorial behavior: Force. Keep that in mind and you will easily grasp why apprehensions about sedition charges are specious. Unless prosecutors can prove that the alleged conspirators agreed to use force against the government, there is no such crime.

The notion of prosecuting sedition is anathema to legal experts and some historians because it calls to mind the late 18th century Alien and Sedition Acts, which are justly reviled as an unconstitutional effort to punish political dissent. There is also understandable constitutional concern about the word sedition. Outside the criminal-law context, it can be broadly construed to cover speech that, though it urges people to revolt against a government, does not necessarily advocate violence.

But here, we are talking about the criminal-law context, and the distinction matters. To begin with, the word "sedition" does not appear in the "seditious conspiracy" statute. The adjective "seditious" is in the title, but it does not appear in the statute's all-important charging language.

What matters in any criminal statute is how Congress has defined the proscribed conduct. In this instance, Congress has taken aim at forcible action against the nation qua nation, or its government qua government. To be precise, Section 2384 makes it a crime, punishable by up to 20 years' imprisonment, for two or more people to conspire . . .

. . . to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof. [Emphasis added.]

Consequently, if people urge the end of the United States or the dissolution of its government, but they do not contemplate accomplishing these objectives by force, then there is no crime. And even if people do contemplate using force against others, including others who happen to be government officials, there is still no seditious-conspiracy offense unless force is to be used to attack the United States, or to destroy or impede the functions of the U.S. government.

Congress has proscribed a straightforward offense: Force must be used, or at least contemplated, with the specific intent to strike at the United States or its government. Therefore, the fact that the word "sedition" may be fraught with ambiguity and dark historical overtones is irrelevant.

In my terrorism case, this offense was not difficult to prove, and the defendants were duly convicted. We had abundant evidence of jihadists' proclaiming that they were at war with the United States; that they intended to strike at political and financial targets in order to extort changes in American policy; and that they would attack government buildings and current and former government officials as part of their war against the country.

All those years ago, legal experts also cited the First Amendment as a supposedly fatal complication. The First Amendment protects freedom of conscience, the argument went, and jihadists were motivated by their interpretation of their religion. The First Amendment safeguards political speech to express dissent, and jihadists bitterly opposed American foreign policy and various aspects of American culture.

Again, this was a smokescreen. No one was being charged with having fundamentalists beliefs or harboring hostility to our country and its policies. The defendants were charged with conspiring to use force in prosecuting a war against our country and striking against our government. Their reasons for doing these things formed no part of the crime. As in any criminal case, statements indicative of purpose and motive factor in because they tend to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendants committed the charged acts with the requisite criminal intent. But Section 2384 targets violence, not beliefs.

Freedom of speech means the government may not make your speech illegal in and of itself, unless it falls within exceptions that were well known at the time the First Amendment was adopted (e.g., obscenity or incitement to violence). But the First Amendment has never been understood to immunize speech from being used as evidence of crimes.

Let's say a mafia boss replies, "I hate that guy, whack him," when the underboss asks what's to be done about a rival mobster. The mobster is subsequently killed and the boss is charged with murder. At the trial, the boss has no viable First Amendment objection to the admission of his statement as evidence. He is being prosecuted for murder, not the statements; the latter are obviously proof of his motive and intention to commit murder — they are not the murder itself.

Similarly, if there is evidence that people are using force or plotting violent attacks against U.S. government installations, there is no viable objection to the introduction of evidence that they hated the United States and called for attacks against the government. The statements are not the crime; they are evidence of the crime, and the First Amendment does not prohibit their use as such. Judges, moreover, carefully instruct juries that people may not be convicted for holding unpopular beliefs; there must be proof beyond a reasonable doubt, in a seditious-conspiracy case, that they conspired to use force against the nation and its government. That's the crime.

People who join in rioting are engaged in a form of domestic terrorism. They are likely to commit several federal crimes. Rioting itself is a federal crime (Section 2101) if people cross state lines to incite it or carry it out. I've recently addressed the Travel Act, which similarly involves crossing state lines to carry out crimes of violence. Arson and the use of explosives are also federal crimes.

If these forcible, lethally destructive acts are committed by people who are working together to make war against our country or attack our government, then seditious conspiracy is a perfectly apt offense to charge. It not only fits the conduct; it also allows prosecutors to charge the case in a framework that explains what the violent radicals are trying to accomplish. So Barr is right, and his critics' arguments are as wrong as they were almost 30 years ago.

The EU Parliament's call for a probe into the alleged poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, along with new sanctions against Moscow, is just a manifestation of the establishment's "anti-Russian sentiment."

That's according to Maximilian Krah, a member of the European Parliament from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The "obscure" case involving the alleged poisoning of Navalny has been used by the EU establishment to launch another round of Moscow-bashing, he says.

The lawmaker explained that his fellow MEPs had not, in fact, seen a single piece of evidence suggesting the Russian government might have had a hand in what happened to Navalny.

"We don't have the evidence... none of the members of parliament who today voted in favor of sanctions has seen any evidence."

Krah said it was "unrealistic" to expect that Navalny's case would not be politicized, arguing that it was "absolutely clear" it was being used to push an anti-Moscow agenda.

On Thursday morning, the EU Parliament passed a resolution calling on member states to "isolate Russia in international forums," to "halt the Nord Stream 2 project" and to prioritize the approval of another round of sanctions against Moscow.

The MEP also expressed skepticism about the prospects of the broader public ever getting to see any evidence linking the opposition figure's sudden illness to Russian foul play.

"Evidence will only get published and provided to Russia if there is public pressure," he said, adding that he does not see any such pressure building anywhere in the EU. Until that changes, Berlin is likely to continue demanding "answers" from Moscow while holding off on requests by Russian for cooperation, Krah believes.

The German MEP also weighed in on the fate of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, suggesting that the alleged poisoning could work to Washington's benefit, given that the White House has been seeking to undermine the project, linking Russian gas to Germany, for months. Krah said it was "clear from the beginning" that the US would try to use the situation to scupper the project, which he says would make Germany "more independent from American influence."

The EU resolution, which is not legally binding but acts as an advisory for the bloc's leaders, was supported by 532 MEPs and opposed by 84, while 72 abstained. Fresh sanctions against Russia have been mulled by both the EU and US since news about Navalny's alleged poisoning was made public.

Moscow has repeatedly expressed its readiness to cooperate with Germany in the probe into the incident, while stressing that the Russian medics who first treated Navalny when he fell ill found no traces of any poison in his body. The Kremlin has also repeatedly approached Berlin for data possessed by the German side, but has so far received none.

• Germany offered to build $1.2 billion LNG terminals to stop US' sanctions on Nord Stream 2
• Why Navalny was handed over to Germany
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Once his comments were shared more widely, few found legitimacy in the comparison.

"Bill Barr equates quarantine with chattel slavery as one of the greatest intrusions of civil liberties in American history. Statements like these make you realize many in this country know nothing about what it truly means to be oppressed," 'The View' co-host Sunny Hostin tweeted in reaction to the comment. Another person criticized the remarks by simply saying, "What a disgrace."

"The thing about Bill Barr's comments is that he knows better. Which is what makes them a whole lot worse," CNN political correspondent Abby D. Pillip added.

"How about WW2 Japanese Internment camps? Jim Crow laws? segregation? Tuskegee Syphilis experiments?" another commenter tweeted, while Star Trek actor George Takei posted: "As someone who spent four years in U.S. internment camps during World War II, I think Bill Barr is full of horse manure."

Barr's comments also angered lockdown supporters, but he earned a round of applause at the DC event after making them.

Some conservatives, many of whom have been critical of local governments' response to the pandemic, also showed support for Barr amidst a pushback against his coronavirus comments and other actions as attorney general.

Since there was never any national lockdown in place, but rather various stay-at-home orders and business shutdown mandates - which still continue in certain areas in most states - Barr chided governors for acting like "bureaucrats" and treating "free citizens as babies that can't take responsibility for themselves and others."