Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on my concerns over the planned “snap impeachment” this year. In my view, impeaching on the speech alone would raise serious concerns over the use of impeachment in the future. Many Democrats, including members of Congress, refused to accept Trump as the legitimate president when he was elected and refused to do so as rioting broke out at the inauguration. Many of the same members have used the same type of rhetoric to “take back the country” and “fight for the country.” The concern is that this impeachment will not only create precedent for an expedited pathway of “snap impeachments” but allow future Congresses to impeach presidents for actions of their supporters. The point of this column is to call for greater caution and deliberation before we take this step to consider the basis and implications of this impeachment. As with the calls to use the 25th Amendment, there are real dangers to any opportunistic or hurried use of this option. There is also the alternative of a joint and bipartisan condemnation of both houses, which would be both justified and unassailable.
As I have said, there could be evidence to support impeachment on the proposed incitement article but it would have to be found before or after the speech to show an intent to spark rioting or to allow it to continue. As with the 25th Amendment claim, such evidence would be found from within the White House and through a traditional impeachment inquiry.
Here is the column:
Author Franz Kafka once wrote, “My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.” Congressional Democrats appear close to adopting that Kafkaesque standard into the Constitution as they prepare for a second impeachment of President Trump. In seeking his removal for “incitement,” Democrats would gut not only the impeachment standard but free speech, all in a mad rush to remove Trump just days before the end of his term.
Democrats are seeking to remove Trump on the basis of his speech to supporters before the Jan. 6 rioting at the U.S. Capitol. Like many, I condemned that speech as it was still being given, calling it reckless and wrong. I also opposed the challenges to electoral votes in Congress. However, Trump’s speech does not meet the definition of incitement under the U.S. criminal code. Indeed, it would be considered protected speech by the Supreme Court.
When I testified in both the Clinton and Trump impeachment hearings, I noted that an article of impeachment does not have to be based on a clear crime but that Congress historically has looked to the criminal code to weigh impeachment offenses. In this current controversy, any such comparison would quickly dispel claims of criminal incitement. Despite widespread, justified condemnation of his words, Trump never actually called for violence or a riot. Rather, he urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to express opposition to the certification of electoral votes and to support the challenges being made by some members of Congress. He expressly told his followers “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Such electoral-vote challenges have been made by Democrats in past elections under the Electoral Count Act, and Trump was pressing Republican lawmakers to join the effort on his behalf. He stated: “Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy…And after this, we’re going to walk down – and I’ll be there with you – we’re going to walk down … to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
He ended his speech by saying a protest at the Capitol was meant to “try and give our Republicans, the weak ones … the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.” Such marches are common — on both federal and state capitols — to protest or to support actions occurring inside.
The governing legal standard for violent speech is found in Brandenburg v. Ohio. As a free speech advocate, I have long criticized that 1969 case and what I consider its dangerously vague standard. However, even Brandenburg would treat Trump’s speech as protected by the First Amendment. Under that case, the government can criminalize speech that is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
There was no call for lawless action by Trump. Instead, there was a call for a protest at the Capitol. Moreover, violence was not imminent; the vast majority of the tens of thousands of protesters present were not violent before the march, and most did not riot inside the Capitol. Like many violent protests we have witnessed over the last four years, including Trump’s 2017 inauguration, the criminal conduct was carried out by a smaller group of instigators. Capitol police knew of the planned march but declined an offer of National Guard personnel because they did not view violence as likely.
Thus, Congress is about to seek the impeachment of a president for a speech that is protected under the First Amendment. It would create precedent for the impeachment of any president who can be blamed for the violent acts of others after the use of reckless or inflammatory language.
What is even more unnerving are the few cases that would support this type of action. The most obvious is the 1918 prosecution of socialist Eugene Debs, who spoke passionately against the draft in World War I and led figures like President Wilson to declare him a “traitor to his country.” Debs was arrested and charged with sedition, the new favorite term of today’s Democratic leaders to denounce Trump and Republican members who challenged the Biden victory.
In 1919, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote for a unanimous bench in one of the most infamous decisions to issue from the Supreme Court. The court dismissed Debs’ free speech rights and held that it was sufficient that his words had the “natural tendency and reasonably probable effect” of deterring people from supporting the war.
That decision was a disgrace — but Democrats are now arguing something even more extreme as the basis for impeachment. Under their theory, any president could be removed for rhetoric deemed to have the “natural tendency” to encourage others to act in a riotous fashion. Even a call for supporters to protest peacefully would not be a defense. It would be as if Debs first denounced the war but also encouraged people to enlist. This standard would allow for a type of vicarious impeachment — attributing conduct of third parties to a president for the purposes of removal.
Democrats are pushing this dangerously vague standard while objecting to their own statements being given incriminating meaning by critics. For example, conservatives have pointed to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) calling for people to confront Republican leaders in restaurants; Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) insisted during 2020’s violent protests that “there needs to be unrest in the streets,” while then-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said “protesters should not let up” even as many protests were turning violent. They can all legitimately argue that their rhetoric was not meant to be a call for violence, but this is a standard fraught with subjectivity.
The damage caused by this week’s rioting was enormous — but it will pale in comparison to the damage from a new precedent of a “snap impeachment” for speech protected under the First Amendment. It is the very danger that the Framers sought to avoid in crafting the impeachment standard. In a process meant to require deliberative, not impulsive, judgments, the very reference to a “snap impeachment” is a contradiction in constitutional terms. In this new system, guilt is not to be doubted and innocence is not to be deliberated. It would do to the Constitution what the rioters did to the Capitol: Leave it in tatters.
Great News.
Trump and Pence Hold Oval Office Meeting, ‘Pledge to Continue the Work on Behalf of the Country for the Remainder of Their Term’
President Trump and Vice President Pence met in the Oval Office Monday evening, according to reports and a statement by a senior administration official. They reportedly said they will finish out the remainder of their term in office, effectively ruling out Trump resigning or Pence invoking the 25th Amendment. This was reported to be the first time the two men have spoken since before Wednesday’s storming of the Capitol.
White House reporters have been reporting the same statement from a “senior administration official.” Via NBC News:
“The two had a good conversation, discussing the week ahead and reflecting on the last four years of the administration’s work and accomplishments. They reiterated that those who broke the law and stormed the Capitol last week do not represent the America first movement backed by 75 million Americans, and pledged to continue the work on behalf of the country for the remainder of their term.”
Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs had the same quote on the meeting, “Trump and Mike Pence, spoke today, I’m told — the 1st time since his supporters rioted at the US Capitol while the @VP was presiding over formal certification of the president’s re-election defeat…Pence and Trump in mtg today “reiterated that those who broke the law and stormed the Capitol last week do not represent the America first movement backed by 75 million Americans, and pledged to continue the work on behalf of the country for the remainder of their term,” SAO says”
Gateway Pundit
Democrats do not care about human life, police, laws nor Americans. All they care about is power
It’s a wonder YouTube has not removed that video.
Search for ANTIFA on YT and all you will find is Proud Boys. Sinister mofo
I’m a fan of Turley and I remain hopeful that one day he will wake up to the true nature of who and what we are dealing with here but right now he’s just spitting into a very strong wind. At what point does he realize that the United States is a complete and utter fraud on its citizens? The recent SCOTUS and other court actions are clear and concise evidence of this. You would think Turley would be honest with himself about that.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson et al.
Texas Jack is just our usual troll with another incoherent talking point.
The Supreme Court has declined to hear cases relating to election fraud on an expedited basis. That means they will be considered well after the inauguration.
Why even bother?
They can say there isn’t enough evidence to support the suits.
They can say they are moot because the inauguration has already taken place.
They can decide the election was a fraud and demand a remedy. We know they won’t do that and we know that even if they do their decision will be ignored.
The Democrats and their Tech Lords are demonstrating exactly what they think of America and the Constitution with startling rapidity. They want to crush any non-conforming opinion and they are doing it in a high-tech fashion that would make Hitler and Stalin salivate with envy. They certainly won’t let a cowardly Supreme Court bench stop them.
When Obamacare was up for consideration Obama signaled he might ignore the Court’s decision because, as he said, the justices were just a bunch of unelected old folks in black robes, to paraphrase. And many wonder if the powers in the shadows had a special message for Roberts that turned his brain into a Mobius strip.
The Left has the will and inclination to apply the heel of a jackboot to the Court when it gets out of line and I suspect the justices know it. Don’t look for legal wisdom in their cases on political issues; look for cowardice.
Meanwhile, I suspect that close to half the population is decoupling to some degree. I wonder how that will play out?
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/01/branco-cartoon-2021st-amendment/
EMINENT DOMAIN
PERIOD
billionaires and their controlled big corporations particularly Silicon Valley are responsible for much of our woes and they will be responsible for the ones coming down the pike
the Federal Reserve system is the worst evilest American quasi governmental agency of all of them all
they bankroll the enemies of the people, they have made them even richer as we all got sick, loney, and poor
now this disgusting weasel Jack Dorsey thinks he is the boss. wow!
remember that stuff kids because we may go into a major blackout soon. SHTF even harder in 2021
billionaires are the enemy of the people
Here, here. Could not agree more.
The blog troll, calling himself Texas Jack, is simply affirming his own ‘anonymous’ post.
One thing the left can be counted on is to overstep.
Trust in government is at an all time low.
The likelyhood of avoiding future violence is small.
The only question is who does what next.
Inaugaration safety:. 1). Build fence around the site. 2) several hundred guards with automatic weapons, tasers, and a large number of firehouses. 3) Helicopters with thousands of pounds of cow poop fly overhead and drop poop on the rioters. 4). Firehouse those who approach the fence. 5) Tase all who climb it breach the fence. 6) Shoot with firearms those who move beyond the fence.
Simple.
Also post signs on the streets two blocks from the fence that anyone who approaches may be shot and pooped on. Bulldozers near by to remove bodies.
We did not have enough armed defenders. Our framers of the Second Amendment declared the need for a well regulated militia. The original wording said …the right to arm bears. Not the right to bear arms. We need a squad of North Carolina brown bears armed with machine guns to be joined with the Capitol Police on Inauguration day.
I can support that, but cow poop is a bit too mild. Now snake poop…that is rank.
So Biden is going to have the snake poop inaugural ?
You do not seem to understand that Biden must have an innaugural that is as open as possible if he is to have even the slightest hope of legitimacy and he must hope for limited protests.
Biden loses no matter what if there is conflict.
That should have been done to antifa sociopaths/psychopaths. It would have been enjoyable to watch, although not in an olfactory sort of way.
Will it be BLM types looking to score some of the Bling in the Gift Bags for the VIP’s that will be the ones being shot?
Cmon Man….get real!
Who do you think is going to show up to the thing?
I am sure that is just how Biden would like to start his presidency.
I would absolutely encourage everyone to refrain from violence. and even to mute protests.
There should be protests – this is an illegitimate president.
But those protests should be respectful – for NOW!
Impeachment is about exacting political vengeance, not protecting the country from an imminent national security threat.
Impeachment should never be based on personal nor political considerations, nor be used as a tool of punishment.
Robert / Estovir, explain why sedition wouldn’t qualify as impeachable.
It wasn’t sedition, nor was it incitment to riot.
Actual sedition would. Sedition is defined as a specific form of incitement to violence.
There was no incitement to violence, there is no sedition.
What we have is a left terrified that people see they have no cloths – they ran a lawless election and Trump has thrown the light on their nakedness.
Jonathan: Call me an optimist but I hoped Trump would give a different speech at his rally last Wednesday. I prayed he would say something like: “To all of you patriots out there. I appreciate your support. While I will never concede we have to recognize that I will be forced to leave office on January 20. I see a lot of you have guns, ropes, tear gas, molotov cocktails and other weapons. This is not the time for violence. Leave here in peace. We will have another opportunity in 2024 to show who are the true Americans.” Or words to that effect. But that was not the speech Trump gave. I knew it was going to be a long afternoon when Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Al0 got up angrily yelling: “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass”. Trump followed with a fiery speech repeating his false claims about the election and said: “You’ll never take beck our country with weakness. You have to show strength. You have to be strong…You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about”. This is the part of Trump’s speech you conveniently didn’t quote. Trump was followed on the dais by his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani who called the crowd to a “trial by combat”. It is quite clear from the above quotes and others that Trump, Giuliani and Brooks had one plan: To stop the Senate and House from counting the Electoral College votes at any cost. At the end of the rally and the crowd stated toward the Capitol building Trump returned to the White House to watch what was happening on TV. Aides say Trump was “delighted” by those who were breaking into the Capitol. Trump loves violence when committed against his opponents. He applauded when federal agents clubbed, used rubber bullets and tear gas against BLM and Antifa protesters last summer. Trump knew what was likely to happen when he spoke at the “Save America” rally. Trump’s incendiary rhetoric was the accelerant that ignited the insurrection that followed.
What is remarkable is that you would defend Trump call to invade the Capitol as just an exercise in “free speech” guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. Trump’s inflammatory language was sedition, an attempted coup d’etat. That’s not protected by the Constitution. Trump needs to be held accountable. But it is unlikely Pence will invoke the 25th Amendment because he doesn’t have the cajones for that task. Your recommendation of a joint bipartisan resolution of “censure” would be toothless when it comes to Trump. The only alternative is another impeachment because Trump needs to be banished from ever holding elective office again. The real danger is that Trump is not finished. By whatever means is available to him, now that he has been permanently banned from Twitter and Facebook. he will try to rally his supporters to show up before on on January 20 to cause further chaos. Chaos is in Trump’s DNA. It’s pathetic you would try to defend Trump’s attempts to overthrow our democracy.
Hey Folks…..we found Adam Schiff’s speech writer…..there is enough fiction being published in the media….we sure don’t. need anymore here!
Americans were hoping Hillary would be graceful, elegant, courteous or deferential in her humiliating defeat but alas she paid Russians to spy on Trump, Barry O and Uncle Joe joined the fray and…well, why present facts to you.
Back to your sing along. Follow the bouncing Molotov cocktail
🎶🎶🎶
That is pretty much exactly what Trump has said.
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-second-video-speech-condemning-capitol-violence-transcript
What is remarkable is that you would call protestors efforts to petition government an invasion.
The govenrment belongs to the people – not congress.
Congress expected protests – as they did with Kavanaugh 2 years earlier.
In 2018 the continued business as usual. Protestors entered the capital, they burst into hearing rooms and into Senators offices.
Most were given the opportunity to speak their mind.
They even changed the vote of a few senators.
Those (200) that were actually violent were arrested and removed.
No one called that an invasion.
In 2021 congress locked their doors. They tried to keep people out of the peoples house.
They tried to run and hide from their constituents.
They tried to thwart the efforts of people to assembly, free speech and petition the government.
Congress does not have to act as people demand. But it is required to allow them to speak, to accept their petition, to allow them to assemble. When congress tries to shut the people down to thwart their voices – it increases the perception of government lawlessness.
If the 538 members of congress are incapable of being in a room together with a bunch of Prols the country is in bad shape.
Congresses failure has brought us closer to violence.
We should resolve our differences non-violently. But contra the left, that is not a requirement.
We are not obligated to surrender out rights peacefully – even if the election actually was lawfull and legitimate – which it was not.
When we can not resolve our differences peacefully – we can not do so by force. That means government can not forceably impose the will of the majority over that of the majority.
It does not matter all that much who is president. What matters is that government is not the tool of a small majority to forcefully require the rest of us to do as we are told. That will result in violence.
Pelosi openly tried to stage a coup d’etat and you guys aren’t mad?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/us/politics/trump-pelosi-nuclear-military.html
+10
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/01/10/lawmaker-army-secretary-investigate-troops-deploying-inauguration-domestic-terror-sympathies.html
purge coming in the armed forces
they are projecting a real insurrection and readying for war against the people
probably the FBI etc are lining up all their informants and provocateurs now to gin up major trouble on impeachment and that will be the pretext for a Patriot Act type law against Americans
it will include gun control, you can be sure of that
the forces of repression are all in on this one
WE should also check out all members of the Biden administration for BLM/Antifa affiliation and bad those from public service.
Oops, that would leave DC empty.
John, The one that supports lying, cheating and stealing wants you to provide evidence. He has been consistently wrong on almost everything. Right now we are seeing a rise in the number of leftists discovered that rioted at the Capitol and Congresswoman who just a short while ago wanted to defund the police now are praising them while calling supporters of Trump white racists.
Anonymous the Stupid doesn’t realize that one group is dehumanizing another. That is what the Nazi’s first did , but he is too stupid to understand fascism and nazism. In another response this nincompoop said he liked fascists because they were good for the little people.(ask the Italians how good it was for them)
Unfortunately dehumanization leads to the ability to cause pain in others through the loss of jobs and all sorts of things. In Nazi Germany it went from pain to the Holocaust and now in (I think ) Minnesota they are trying to end teaching the Holocaust in public schools. It’s not as large a step as some think to actually killing people. The left has been supporting that for years starting with their belief in eugenics and placing baby killing centers near densely populated black areas.
“ Oops, that would leave DC empty.”
Touché
Atleast one person recognizes and appreciates sarcasm.
When the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, acting on instructions from Clarke, informed the council that they favored closing the mission, they faced sharp opposition. The U.S. mission to the United Nations warned that the United States lacked the votes required in the 15-nation Security Council to push through a resolution shuttering the Rwanda mission. Britain’s and Nigeria’s envoys convinced Albright to seek new instructions, which she did. But the United States prevailed in ushering through a resolution scaling down a force of more than 2,500 to a skeletal presence of 270. The move, combined with the evacuation of U.S. and other foreign nationals, sent a message to the Hutu killers that they had an essentially free hand, according to Cameron Hudson, the director of the Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for the Prevention of Genocide.
“If you look at the first two weeks of the genocide, as violence was increasing exponentially, the focus of the U.S. government was the evacuation of U.S. diplomats and Westerners,” Hudson said.“If you look at the first two weeks of the genocide, as violence was increasing exponentially, the focus of the U.S. government was the evacuation of U.S. diplomats and Westerners,” Hudson said. “So while there was a very small window to double down and stop the violence, we sent the opposite signal: We greenlighted genocide by saying, ‘We are going to get out of your way while you kill each other.’”
The lesson of Rwanda has pushed the United States — which since has developed an Atrocities Prevention Board to detect early warning signs — to place a greater emphasis on conflict prevention.
Nearly two weeks into the 1994 mass killings in Rwanda that would ultimately be called genocide, Eric P. Schwartz, a human rights specialist on the National Security Council, wrote a memorandum to his White House colleagues voicing alarm over reports of tens of thousands of slaughtered ethnic Tutsis.
Human rights groups were pleading for the Clinton administration to help keep 2,500 U.N. peacekeepers on the scene in the Central African country. Human Rights Watch, the New York-based advocacy group, was warning that “Rwandans will quickly become victims of genocide.”
“Is this true?” Schwartz asked Susan Rice, at the time a 29-year-old director of international organizations and peacekeeping on the National Security Council (NSC), and Donald Steinberg, then the NSC’s new director for African affairs, according to a recently declassified White House memo dated April 19, 1994. “If so, shouldn’t it be a major factor informing high-level decision-making on this issue? Has it been?”
In the end, the fate of Rwanda’s victims hardly figured at all in U.S. calculations about the international community’s response to what turned out to be the worst mass killing since the HolocaustIn the end, the fate of Rwanda’s victims hardly figured at all in U.S. calculations about the international community’s response to what turned out to be the worst mass killing since the Holocaust, according to hundreds of pages of internal White House memos.
Does this relate to a constitutional treaty in full force and effect? Please cite an Article and Section.