Anyone with a functioning brain stem and even some ability to reason — and is not clouded by an irrational hatred of all things Donald Trump — knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did not “incite” the riot at the Capitol Building earlier this month, and that the violence was not an act of “insurrection.”
Trump never told the crowd in D.C. to hear him speak, ‘Go assault the Capitol!’ And what’s more, if it had been an ‘insurrection,’ then the rioters who got inside the building would have done much worse than stick their feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk or take selfies in Vice President Mike Pence’s Senate chair.
In any event, investigators looking into the assault are finding more and more evidence that the attack was actually preplanned well in advance, which, of course, destroys the Democrat and establishment Republican narrative that Trump was responsible via ‘incitement’ — and it also makes the Democrat-led impeachment of the former president look petty, political, and stupid.
Growing evidence of advance planning and coordination of the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol undermines claims that the rioters were responding spontaneously to former President Trump’s speech to supporters about a mile and a half away, according to legal and intelligence experts.
As Senate Democrats mull their options for convicting or censuring Trump and banning him from future public office for allegedly inciting insurrection, experts said their incitement case against him was dealt a severe blow this week when federal prosecutors charged three men in the Capitol attack, alleging their communication and coordination dated back to November.
For speech to meet the threshold of incitement, a speaker must, first, indicate a desire for violence and, second, demonstrate a capability or reasonable indication of capability to carry out the violence, according to Kevin Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI.
In Trump’s case, Brock said, there were neither.
“I didn’t hear a single word about — or anything that would trigger a reasonable person to believe that he was inciting— violence,” Brock told Just the News. “He even used the words ‘peaceful’ and ‘respectful.’”
He also believes the former president “was caught by surprise at what happened” at the Capitol, which was “a failure, frankly, on the intelligence that he should have been provided as President of the United States.
“We shouldn’t be in a position where knuckleheads like Proud Boys and Oath Keepers can plan a disruptive violent event and it catches us by surprise,” he added.
A side note: There are “knuckleheads” in every organization, but these two groups make a concerted effort to keep them out of their ranks.
Nevertheless, as Brock notes, none of the president’s other verbiage such as “march”, “strength”, and “take back our country” amounts to anything other than typical political phraseology.
“Every other politician in this country uses those kinds of words and that kind of language,” Brock said. “So I think to convict him on those words would open up politicians across both parties for future examination as to whether or not their words are inciting violence across the country. Frankly, I think a lot of them are exposed in that regard.”
Exactly.
