Category: 2020 Election

Impeachment trial: Research spanning decades shows language can incite violence

Senators, acting in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump that begins on Feb. 9, will soon have to decide whether to convict the former president for inciting a deadly, violent insurrection at the Capitol building on Jan. 6. 

A majority of House members, including 10 Republicans, took the first step in the two-step impeachment process in January. They voted to impeach Trump, for “incitement of insurrection.” Their resolution states that he “willfully made statements that, in context, encourage – and foreseeably resulted in – lawless action at the Capitol, such as: ‘if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.’” 

Impeachment proceedings that consider incitement to insurrection are rare in American history. Yet dozens of legislators – including some Republicans – say that Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol contributed to an attempted insurrection against American democracy itself.  Continue reading.

Viral video shows Marjorie Taylor Greene on January 5 saying ‘get ready to fight for America tomorrow’

Less than 24 hours before thousands of Trump supporters would storm the U.S. Capitol in an armed and deadly insurrection Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) stood with that same building in the background and told MAGA adherents to “get ready to fight for America tomorrow.”

Greene, a racist and QAnon conspiracy theorist who has not stopped making incendiary remarks even after being stripped of her committee assignments last week, also told supporters, “Trump was re-elected for four more years,” which is a lie, part of the Big Lie Trump and his cult have been spreading since the November election.

The Congresswoman, who last week told her colleagues in the House that she was “allowed to believe” the QAnon cult claims to were real, also falsely claims the Electoral College vote was “stolen.” Continue reading.

Law Prof Cited By Trump Team Says They ‘Flat-Out Misrepresented’ His Work

In a legal brief submitted this week, one of the sources cited by former President Donald Trump’s impeachment lawyers is a 2001 article by Brian C. Kalt, a University of Michigan law professor. Attorneys Bruce Castor, David Schoen and Michael T. van der Veen use Kalt’s article to argue against Trump’s second impeachment — and according to a Twitter thread by Kalt, they have taken his arguments out of context “badly.”

Kalt’s 2001 article dealt with late impeachment. Trump, following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building, was impeached late in his presidency for incitement to insurrection — too late, according to his impeachment lawyers. But Kalt, noting that the brief “cites my 2001 article on late impeachment a lot,” explains, “The article favored late impeachability, but it set out all the evidence I found on both sides — lots for them to use. But in several places, they misrepresent what I wrote quite badly.”

Kalt, in his 2001 article, never reached the conclusion that a late impeachment was unconstitutional. But Castor, Schoen and van der Veen, according to Kalt, strongly suggest he did argue for this conclusion. Continue reading.

Opinion: My fellow Republicans, convicting Trump is necessary to save America

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Adam Kinzinger, a Republican, represents Illinois’s 16th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Winston Churchill famously said, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” All Americans, but especially my fellow Republicans, should remember this wisdom during the Senate’s trial of former president Donald Trump.

I say this as a lifelong Republican who voted to impeach Trump last month. Virtually all my colleagues on the right side of the aisle took the opposite path. Most felt it was a waste of time — political theater that distracted from bigger issues. The overwhelming majority of Senate Republicans appear to feel the same way about conviction.

But this isn’t a waste of time. It’s a matter of accountability. If the GOP doesn’t take a stand, the chaos of the past few months, and the past four years, could quickly return. The future of our party and our country depends on confronting what happened — so it doesn’t happen again. Continue reading.

Trump Claimed Election ‘Rigged’ Or ‘Stolen’ Over 100 Times Ahead Of Capitol Riot

Then-President Donald Trump falsely claimed more than 100 times that Democrats had “rigged” or “stolen” the 2020 election ahead of January’s deadly insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol, a HuffPost analysis found.

In reviewing all of Trump’s tweets and speeches between Election Day on Nov. 3 and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, HuffPost mapped out the rhetoric his followers absorbed as their defiance against President Joe Biden’s win mounted.

Over the course of those two months, Trump ― the most powerful politician in the country and, arguably, the entire world ― lied that the election was rigged at least 68 times and that it was stolen or in the process of being stolen at least 35 times. He made claims of voter fraud and ballot-counting irregularities more than 250 times, specifically making baseless claims that voting machines tossed or changed votes at least 45 times. Continue reading.

Trump Is Calling Us to Fight!’: Georgia Teen Charged in Capitol Riots

Prosecutors allege Bruno Cua—who recently got busted for allegedly blaring his horn from a MAGA-themed truck in his hometown—was at the front of the pack.

Federal prosecutors on Monday unsealed charges against a MAGA-loving Georgia teen who allegedly shoved a police officer to enter the Senate chamber during the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot and encouraged his social media followers for days to show up to Washington, D.C., to “fight.”

Bruno Joseph Cua, 18, was arrested Friday and charged with several crimes—including assault on a federal officer and civil disorder—for his role in the unprecedented siege. In a criminal complaint, prosecutors allege that after encouraging his social media followers for almost two weeks to support former President Donald Trump and protest against the election, the Georgia teenager stormed the Capitol.

The Milton, Georgia, resident is seen in several photos and videos at the Capitol wearing a MAGA hat and a sweatshirt adorned with an eagle—including a New Yorker video showing a slew of rioters fighting their way onto the Senate floor. Continue reading.

Georgia officials open inquiry into Trump efforts to overturn election results

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The Georgia secretary of state’s office is investigating former President Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results in the Peach State, which included a phone call he placed to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) in early January.

Walter Jones, a spokesman for the office, confirmed the probe in a Monday statement and described it as “fact-finding and administrative.”

“The Secretary of State’s office investigates complaints it receives. The investigations are fact-finding and administrative in nature,” Jones said. “Any further legal efforts will be left to the Attorney General.” Continue reading.

Arizona Republicans threaten to arrest fellow GOPers if they don’t turn over ballots for another recount: report

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According to a report from USA Today, the Republican majority in the State Senate is threatening to arrest members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors if they don’t turn over copies of mail-in ballots and voting machines so they can conduct another vote count of the 2020 presidential election results that led to Doinald Trump losing.

The report notes that the Maricopa board is also predominately Republican but that hasn’t stopped state senators from going after them.

“The Arizona Senate, controlled by Republicans, has threatened to hold the supervisors, nearly all Republicans, in contempt for not responding to subpoenas asking for copies of all the county’s mail-in ballots and access to voting machines. The Senate wants to perform its own audit,” the report states. “Some senators have even threatened to arrest the supervisors over the matter, and the body could vote on the contempt resolution as early as Monday.” Continue reading.

Trump’s DC Hotel Is Jacking Up Rates For QAnon’s Next Special Date

For some QAnon conspiracy theorists, March 4, 2021 is a date circled in red Sharpie on the calendar. The truly devoted believe that, on this special date, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 19th president of the United States.

The theory borrows from the sovereign citizens movement, which espouses that a law enacted in 1871 secretly turned the U.S. into a corporation and ended the American government put in place by the founding fathers. Accordingly, the true inauguration date was not January 20, as the rest of the world believes. The conspiracy theorists contend that the real inauguration will happen on March 4, the date on which presidents were sworn in prior to the 1933 passage of the 20th amendment. Still following? QAnon followers believe that Trump will return to power on March 4 as the 19th president of the United States. The last true president, the theory goes, was Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president, who was in office in 1871 when the United States turned into a corporation. Got it?

“Some QAnon followers are borrowing discredited arguments from sovereign citizens in order to yet again move the goalposts,” Travis Week, co-host of the conspiracy-debunking podcast QAnon Anonymous, explained via tweet, “They’re absurdly claiming Trump will be inaugurated on March 4, because the U.S. was ‘incorporated’ in 1871 and all Amendments passed after that are invalid.” Continue reading.

Myth that Trump can’t be convicted by Senate because he’s no longer in office blown up by DC law firm head

According to the head of a high-powered law firm based in Washington D.C., Republican protestations that Donald Trump cannot be convicted in his second impeachment trial because he is no longer in office are fundamentally wrong.

With conservative boosters of the president attempting to undercut the proceedings that begin on Tuesday on the floor of the U.S. Senate by attacking the process, Chuck Cooper, the founder and chairman of Cooper & Kirk, laid that argument to rest.

On the pages of the conservative Wall Street Journal, Cooper referred to the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton to make his case. Continue reading.