Heather Cox Richardson "Then we heard the news on pence... And lost it... So we stormed."

[Joinfortmill]

Last edited Fri Jan 21, 2022, 04:44 PM - Edit history (1)

Heather Cox Richardson
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-20-2022

January 20, 2022

"The committee called attention to Trump’s 2:24 p.m. tweet saying, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” It listed statements from rioters describing how that tweet set them off: “Once we found out Pence turned on us and that they had stolen the election, like officially, the crowd went crazy….”

“Then we heard the news on pence… And lost it… So we stormed.”
4

[Lovie777]

1. Blood on his hands from this and the pandemic ...

he needs to be in prison.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

2. Aiding and Abetting is a Federal Crime.

What TDFPOS did was a CRIME.

[LastDemocratInSC]

4. I know what TDFPOS means.

That Damn Fucking Piece Of Shit.

[Harker]

7. I went with "disgraced", which I think should precede his name in all instances...

written or spoken.

[RainCaster]

22. Disgraced & Defeated Former POTUS

DDFPOTUS

[Harker]

25. You've inspired me to break my WORDL fixation long enough

to see if it's possible to use the entire alphabet in a massive acronym.

It might come pretty easily.

[Poiuyt]

23. And "defeated"

Because, after all, he's a loser.

[Harker]

24. He's going into an irrecoverable tailspin of losing. n/t

[ProudMNDemocrat]

21. That too.

[Haggard Celine]

3. This was all conceived and orchestrated by Donald Trump.

He came up with the idea to negate the outcome of the election even before the election. He probably didn't do a lot of the planning. He told people like Mike Flynn and Alex Jones and Roger Stone what he wanted done and they figured out the best way they knew how to carry out his wishes. The planners of the insurrection are of secondary concern. Trump was the father of this fiasco and I hope the DoJ and the 1/6 Committee don't lose sight of his primary culpability.

[OAITW r.2.0]

5. He was laying out the same scenario in 2016.

Except, surprisingly to him and everyone, he squeaked a thin EC victory that year. Then proceeded to do his damndest to destroy the country for 4 years before losing by 8MM votes in 2020.

[Harker]

8. That's an important point that needs to be remembered as a piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

He was regularly bleating about the "rigged election" he won.

[2naSalit]

10. +1

[dalton99a]

17. +1

[moonscape]

33. Yes, but I that was pure ego and to

protect himself from his projected loss. He didn’t have the infrastructure, support, power, or knowledge to attempt a coup. He was definitely intended to pound that drum and be destructive though, to keep himself in the spotlight.

[Harker]

34. I agree.

He didn't expect to win the first time, and might not really have wanted the job.

Once in, though, he feared losing the income, power, and protection.

I remember, looking back, Vladimir Putin publicly handing him a soccer ball at a joint press conference. He wanted to play with the ruthless autocrats, but couldn't quite beat the system.

[Stuart G]

36. + 1

[Stuart G]

37. + 1

[Harker]

39. Thanks for the bonus! n/t

[Stuart G]

40. Didn't mean to...but I will keep it up. For this time only..

[Harker]

41. I'm deeply honored, Stuart G

[ificandream]

16. Don't forget packing the courts ...

He prepared for his defeat all four years he was in office. And I can't find it, but didn't he announce his re-election for 2020 just after taking office?

[radical noodle]

20. He filed first with the FEC in January 2017

shortly after taking office.

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/18/733505037/trump-set-to-officially-launch-reelection-but-hasnt-he-been-running-all-along

The former reality TV star and real estate mogul — the first president without prior political or military experience — used an unorthodox campaign style to notch an upset win in 2016, with massive rallies to excite supporters. And he's employed that same strategy, with a heavily blurred line between official duties and trying to sell his agenda muddled with outright politicking, since taking office.

In fact, Trump filed his official paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Jan. 20, 2017 — mere hours after he was inaugurated. And less than a month later, he would hold a rally (also in Florida) that was paid for by his campaign committee. When asked by a reporter if this was too early in his presidency to hold such an event, Trump replied, "Life is a campaign." As president-elect, he also launched a "victory tour" of sorts to battleground states.

[DeeNice]

30. Yep. The day after as I recall. nt

[gab13by13]

6. Let's not forget to follow the money,

Fucking American oligarchs and foreign Bitcoin money funded the coup.

[2naSalit]

11. +1

[True Blue American]

28. Yes, Trump knew he was going to lose

Funny how the cable media and pundits are doing an about face now.

Sensible long time observers are calling out how the media has been all wrong about Biden.

Harwood on CNN this morning. Long time respected Journalists speaking out.

[GB_RN]

9. "Lock Them Up!"

And then "Lock HIM up!"

Adolf Twitter, Hair Gropin' Fuhrer, is guilty of sedition and incitement to riot.

[bucolic_frolic]

12. If that isn't incitement, what is?

[thesquanderer]

26. I guess whether it is legally incitement could depend on proving intent.

So while the rioters might say that that tweet set them off, the question would remain as to whether Trump intended for that tweet to set them off, or more specifically, to set them off to the extent that they would do illegal things, rather than just stay outside and protest.

[bucolic_frolic]

32. So he assembled all the pieces, over several months, and directed others to put it in motion

but his rallying cry to take back our country and Constitution from what was stolen fraudulently wasn't explicit intent?

That's his defense? It sounds a bit like robbing a bank and then refusing to get into the getaway car.

[CaptainTruth]

38. It's more than just intent, see my post #35.

I think one issue many folks seem to have when discussing this is the difference between "inspiring" & "inciting."

Trump absolutely contributed to inspiring Jan 6, along with Fox News, OAN, a bunch of right wingers on social media etc etc. The entire right-wing rage-oriented propaganda machine that pushed the Big Lie contributed to inspiring it.

But inspiring is not illegal, see the First Amendment on that.

Now, inciting IS illegal, it has a specific legal definition as a criminal act.

There's a lot of inspiring going on every day, but rarely does it rise to the level of inciting, & it has to meet certain legal tests to be considered incitement.

I think a lot of folks use the two terms interchangeably, but they're not the same.

[CaptainTruth]

35. See Brandenburg v. Ohio

Brandenburg v. Ohio established the imminent lawless action test. For speech to be incitement it must be speech that "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."

Examples in the Jan 6 context might be things like "We need to storm the Capitol now!" "Stop the vote certification now! Do whatever it takes!" "Occupy the Capitol! Don't let them stop you!"

Shouting those things to the crowd right before they attacked the Capitol would certainly meet the Brandenburg imminent lawless action test for incitement, & a prosecutor should be able to make a good & successful criminal case based on them.

Now look at Trump's words. He says Mike Pence lacks courage, electoral votes were fraudulent or inaccurate, & "USA demands the truth!" Do those statements meet the Brandenburg test for incitement? No, they don't, & I wouldn't expect any prosecutor to try to bring a criminal case based on them because it would be a losing case.

Which brings me to an important observation: When it comes to situations where Trump could be exposing himself to legal liability, he chooses his words carefully. You can go all the way back to when he was selling condos that hadn't yet been built, taking buyers' money & then never building anything (decades ago) & follow his entire fraudulent business career & he does a really good job of choosing words that limit his liability, his criminal exposure. He's generally an idiot but he seems to have mastered this one skill, because of course, it's a skill that is purely self-serving.

So Trump handled Jan 6 the same way he's handled everything else during his deceitful fraudulent career. He knew he could *inspire* anger in his cult followers with the right words, carefully chosen so they didn't reach the level of *incitement*, thus minimizing criminal liability for himself while trying to achieve his devious goals.

[Harker]

43. "Fight like hell" and "you're not going to have a country anymore"

might pass that test.

[Joinfortmill]

48. 👍

[LaMouffette]

13. TFG's tweet also shows he knew about the slate of fraudulent electors and their forged documents!

"Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance TO CERTIFY A CORRECTED SET OF FACTS, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify."

There you go! Lock him up for election interference, along with the thousands of crimes against humanity he has committed since 2016.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

18. Yes, it was a pre-planned tweet, because he expected Pence to not follow through

All part of the conspiracy.

Like "Pence ain't gonna knuckle under. When he officially does the dirty on us, I'll tweet out. We'll have riled up the crowd plenty before that! It's gonna be yuge! Stone and his boys will be ready on the other side of the Potomac with the guns for later."

[gab13by13]

19. Flynn and Stone need to go down,

arrogant traitors.

[LaMouffette]

46. You're right! Everything was orchestrated to create chaos so that either (a) the decision of who won

would be handed over to the House of Representatives for a Contingent Election with each state getting just one vote, or (b) TFG could use the Insurrection Act to hold onto power.

In all of their actions, from spreading the lie that there was election fraud, to the fraudulent slate of electors for Trump, to the insurrection attempt on Jan. 6, they were acting like corrupt cops planting drugs in someone's car so that they could arrest them.

In other words, they're the ones stirring up trouble so that they can manipulate the resulting situation to get what they want.

Too disgusting for words.

[DeeNice]

31. "corrected" LOL

[oregonjen]

44. Yes! Now that we know about the forged fake electors, it sure makes more sense.

[mountain grammy]

14. so is that when they began chanting "hang Mike Pence?"

Both twitter and FB generate a warning for these three words. How absurd is that.

On Jan 5th, 2021, a few members of my husband's trumper family posted long prayers on FB begging Mike Pence to do the right thing in the name of Jesus..

[Butterflylady]

29. This is why Civics need to be taught in schools again.

Pence had no authority to change anything. His role was just to read what the electors certified to congress. All it is is a ceremony. Pence's role was only what you would call ceremonial, nothing more.

[malaise]

42. The Slobfather is Guilty

of sedition

[erronis]

15. HCR is the frist thing I read every morning. And since she writes in the wee hours, it is fresh.

I don't know how she does it while also teaching at Harvard.

[onecaliberal]

27. Two time impeached and defeated former occupant of the oval office is responsible for more death

than every single war this country has fought. HE NEEDS TO PAY DEARLY. So do those who aided and abetted him.

[Martin Eden]

45. TFG incited them at the rally, told them to March on the Capitol, then ...

... incited the violent insurrection with his tweet about Pence.

Lock him up!!!

[robbob]

47. "Once we found out...they had stolen the election, like officially..."

Goddamn these people are brain dead morons. My apologies to any brain dead morons out there. The orange anus opens his putrid pie hole and spews out some predictable nonsense and that’s “like, officially…”? If it wasn’t so pathetic, sad, and terrifying it would be hilarious…

[Blue Owl]

49. Sounds kinda like a witch hunt, as FF45 was so fond of screaming