Put Yourself in the Shoes of a Juror in a Seditious Conspiracy Case Against Trump

Re: the question raised in the meme here, as much as I hate Trump and desperately want to see him face justice for his myriad crimes, I actually don’t think I could convict him of that particular crime.

If I were a juror and heard evidence that Trump, on the morning of January 6th, urged his to supporters to “go down to the Capitol and fight like hell, or you won’t have a country anymore,” I’m not sure I could convict him of seditious conspiracy, even though considerable violence ensued.

But his attorneys will say, “Yes, he used the word ‘fight.’  But he didn’t mean to resort to violence.  When MLK said that American negroes needed to ‘fight’ for their rights, he most certainly wasn’t urging black people to literally beat the pulp out of those who stood in their way.” Insofar as the standard of proof in criminal cases is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, I would have to (begrudgingly) acquit him.

But what to make of us Trump’s watching the insurrection he had fomented–and its violence–on television for more than three hours before intervening. I’m not sure which criminal code that violates, but there must be one, if not dozens.  In the military, it’s called, at a very minimum, “dereliction of duty.”

What it’s called in the civilian code I can’t say, but he clearly declined to insert himself so as to avoid what is arguably the single most disgraceful moment in U.S. history.

The world around us, to this day, stands with its mouths collectively agape with the knowledge that the great United States of America came within a hair’s breadth of losing its democracy that day.  And we’re still nowhere close to having all the threats of autocracy put behind us.