Breaking 1-06-21: MAGA terrorist attack on Capitol

It's the whole basis for his multiple indictments. Trump knows the law and continues to break it. He's doing the real world version of the NBA's "just foul on every play, they can't call them all." The documents case is entirely about him knowingly crossing the line over and over because he thinks he'll get away with.

They can continue lecturing him and making good statements in court, but none of it will impact him because it never has. He'll continue breaking the rules, they'll have a hearing and chastise him and he'll do it again.

 

Agreed. That's why they have jail cells for situations like these.

 

I disagree a bit. I think Pence should hold all his powder for his testimony at trial. He can hit the media circuit after that. If he goes blabbing now, it'll give Trump lawyers a preview and it'll open his testimony to criticism that it is politically motivated.

 

Would have been cooler if the Judge said “this is the way”.

 

A profile in courage ...

Well, well: now Trump reframes Big Lie / Stolen Election as just "my opinion" and "what I think"

Methinks, a day late and a dollar short.

 

How was he exercising his free speech by enlisting false electors to fraudulently sign fake electoral slips?

 

He misspoke. 1st amendment. His religion is fraud

 

I'm guessing neither you nor the author of the xeet actually read the indictment.

 

I’m guessing you never read the constitution.

 

Constitution protects you from forging documents for fake electors?
Hm I don’t remember that from my con. Law class.

 

So you haven't read the indictment. Got it.

 

Wow, I liked and remembered Amash for standing on principle even at the cost of his office, but he just threw all his credibility in the dumpster.

 

I like and respect Justin Amash but this is one area that I disagree with him. I read his post in FB a few days ago and replied to him.

As others have noted the indictment clearly states that it’s not about speech but actions.

 

The indictment itself explicitly says that belief and speech, even maliciously false speech, is not a crime on the first page! The partisans parroting the free speech line (excluding Amash who isn't a partisan, just wrong here) are using Trump's tactic: blatantly lie about something easily disproven because you know the audience won't look into it themselves.

 

Frankly it's disappointing coming from Amash. He voted to impeach in the first impeachment of Trump because he read the all the material about it including the whole Mueller Report before coming to his conclusion. I don't it's whether he just doesn't accept Jack Smith's language but his comments really seem uninformed.

 

He's also talking about actions as political contention.

"Remind me again which former presidents have been indicted for going to war without congressional approval, spying on Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment, abusing emergency declarations to bypass checks and balances, or ignoring legal advisers to pursue a clearly unlawful policy.

We don’t criminalize these actions, egregious as they are, because they are matters of political contention. We’re allowed to disagree about the workings of our constitutional system without fear of criminal reprisal."
​

Yet he doesn't actually list them out clearly—there's too much abstraction. If we were to speculate:

Going to war (or engaging in military actions) without congressional approval was technically done as early as during the time of Polk and by Lincoln, and has been routinely done in the modern age. There is some dispute, but no one seriously thinks this is criminal.

Spying on Americans was sanctioned by Congress with the Patriot Act. While its excessive use was politically unacceptable, it can be argued that Congress did technically grant that power.

Abusing emergency declarations involves judgment on a legal action granted to the POTUS. This is political, not criminal.

Nixon wasn't charged for ignoring legal advisers to pursue a clearly unlawful policy (withholding tapes to obstruct the Watergate scandal). This serves as an example of illegality that would result in criminal charges and possibly imprisonment if not for the pardon (and a pardon wouldn't be necessary if there wasn't legitimate case for charges and imprisonment). Thus, the Nixon example is in fact a good example of actions that are illegal vs political contention.