Senate Trial of Donald Trump

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Were the GOP to rid itself of their allegiance to Trump, there wouldn't be any more judgement.
Don't let us keep you from being obsessed with out politics.

Louisiana GOP censures Cassidy for vote to convict Trump today

Huh? Trump was impeached while in office. When the articles of impeachment were sent to the Senate, Mitch McConnell decided to delay the proceedings until Trump left office. (Then McConnell then said he did not vote to convict because not for what Trump did, but because he was out of office. Don't Republicans have any sense of shame?)

So you think a president can incite an insurrection on our government and then not be held accountable by leaving office?

They should have let SCOTUS decided the constitutionality of convicting a former president. But of course it was a smokescreen.

Do keep up - Trump was impeached while he was president.

It wasn't unconstitutional.
But allowing this would mean that a president can commit all sorts of crimes on his last day and avoid being impeached.
So he then gets away with what he did once he's out of office? That's an interesting take on accountability.

Well it seems that a lot of people think that Trump walked free because he was a President, but according to this, at 5:15 into the video, he say that what the President said didn't meet the legal standards for incitement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHo15kRIz0E

So I don't think it's a matter of a big bad rich man getting away with it, and was really just not legally meeting the standards and it's more of a legal technicality? It's not that Trump is a criminal mastermind, it's that the prosecutors were too dumb to look up in their legal books, to know what counts as a crime, legally speaking.

The cliffs of the situation from what I gather are the following:

1. trump did it, again, and everyone knows it, again.

2. trump is expected to be let off the hook because republicans won't convict him for his crimes for reasons ranging from them being enchanted by his cult of personality style "leadership," to calculating their best chances of re-election being from trump supporters voting for them to fearing him and repercussions he could wield against them if he decides to tell his cultists to attack them and their families.

IF this is the case it's a very sad time for the USA. And I hope that trump and his crime family then get nailed by different lawsuits in various courts - NY state, DC, etc for the things they've done. Hell, if someone would drag his ass to The Hague to face the music for his covid response that would be nice, too.. no matter which way you slice it, I do hope someone brings him down and he's unable to run for public office ever again. He's a dangerous old man with dangerous ideals and far too much reach & influence over dangerous people; the far right extremists that attempted to overthrow the US gov't this time who'd do it again if he wound them up enough and told them to.

Ted Cruz is a trump boot licker & responsible in part for organizing this mob and getting them riled up for trump to incite the violence that ensued.. and then trump watched gleefully from the White House for hours vs. did everything he could to assist law enforcement to get things under control asap. It's reported that trump seemed confused as to why others in the White House (staffers etc) were Not as delighted as he was to watch the chaos and destruction. trump is that deranged. Everyone else was like "Whoa.. this is bad. Very bad. And trump caused it & is going to be liable for it.."

You can't take what far right wing news opinion piece commentators say, nor what their trump supporter guests like Ted Cruz say to be fact. Ted Cruz is a Senator, not a judge - and while this Senate trial isn't in a criminal court, it's still not up to Ted Cruz to unilaterally decide that what trump said did not meet the criteria for incitement. Him saying that could be completely false according to criminal law (I'm not an expert, I do not know, but I do know that the Attorney General of Washington DC said he intends to charge trump criminally with Incitement to violence because he believes it's justified, soo..) and he's simply saying it on Faux News to provide a soundbite to trump supporters to eat up like candy. He's latched himself to trump's coattails for the future success of his own political career. Period.

But regardless of Ted Cruz's character, is he right when it comes to the lawbooks? Is it Ted Cruz's opinion, or are there actual law books that says what constitutes as incitement or not, and he is right on that? Aside from it being an opinion from the news, can we confirm that this is a legal fact in the books, and then therefore, it's a fact, and not just an opinion anymore?

I just used Cruz because he talked about the legal standard. I couldn't find any left wing people who are talking about the legal standards as to what legally counts as incitement or what not because no left people are talking about the legalities of it that I could find. So I had to use a right wing person because it was the only person I could find that is talking about legal standards so far.

No.

Oh okay, but can anyone tell me what does meet the legal standards then, or does anyone really care, since no one seems to be talking about the legal standards themselves?

It is not quite that simple, which is why Cruz can confuse people.

This is the legal definition of riot under Federal code: 18 U.S. Code § 2102.Definitions

Look at part (b) for inciting a riot.

When we talk about the right for Congress to try someone on "high crimes and misdemeanors," there is no set definition as this is a very special right that allows Congress the ability to define. Although, having a siting president incite a riot against his own government is not even a gray area. Remember, Clinton was impeach for just lying about an affair with an intern (imagine, a married man would lie about that). But why is that a "high crime"?

Oh okay well if there is no set definition though, according to that article, then that's why it's too hard to prosecute. There has to be set definitions, in order to make a successful case, doesn't there?

Please read the link to the Federal code. That is the first step and will give you the definition of incite a riot. The impeachment process allows for a lower bar, but that is technically easier to prosecute. And no, there does not have to be a definition (althought the Federal code gives one). The prosecutor and defense in the impeachment can argue what constitutes, in this case, high crimes and misdemeanors. Since Trumps action would also fall under the code and there was evidence to show he did incite the crowd to attack the Capitol, I am not sure that this is an ambiguous case.

But this trial is not even close. The Republicans acquitted on a technicality (Trump was out of the office at the time of the trial), not the substance of the charge. Why not acquit because the prosecution could not show he incited the riot?

This also shows Cruz is not actually telling the truth.

Last edited by Jiheisho on 14 Feb 2021, 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't know the law or what it specifies or doesn't in terms of what incitement of violence is, so I can't speak to that.

Logically, however, if you say something inciting & violence results... there's a pretty clear chain of cause & effect events.

Also, what I do KNOW is that that TV program is OPINION and they VERY FREQUENTLY spin things and even flat out lie to present things as fact that are in actuality only Opinion - but they do not present things that way. They intentionally mislead their audience with opinions presented as fact because that's the way propaganda works..

Oh yes for sure, I am not saying what was said on the TV program was fact. That's why I was asking, if the person on the program was right about that or not.