Trevor Aaronson writes about those people who in the past have been inspired by Trump’s rhetoric to commit or plot to commit violent acts, and then tried to use Trump’s incitements as a defense when they were on trial. Judges didn’t seem to buy it.
James R. Pratt, a defense lawyer in Kansas, represented a man who was inspired to violence by Trump in 2016. Patrick Stein conspired with a couple of friends, as well as a pushy FBI informant, in a plot to bomb Somalis who lived in their community. “Number one, the cockroaches got to go, period,” Stein said of the Somalis. Stein had believed Trump’s rhetoric from the 2016 presidential campaign: that the Obama administration was allowing Muslims, and possibly terrorists, into the country without background checks.
Stein was convicted at trial of conspiring to detonate a bomb. Pratt, his lawyer, asked the judge for leniency in sentencing, describing how Stein saw “Trump’s appeal as the voice of a lost and ignored white, working-class set of voters.” Pratt argued that Trump’s “rough-and-tumble verbal pummeling” persuaded Stein that terrorists were being allowed in and that he could do something to protect the country.
U.S. District Judge Eric F. Melgren, a George W. Bush appointee, was unmoved by the argument. “This kind of conversation is endemic in the history of our country,” Melgren said in court, referring to Trump’s heated rhetoric. “And it’s not just coming from the right. The left has incredible attacks on conservative Christians. You can listen to that on MSNBC and other outlets that they have. But none of that explains or justifies anything remotely like what we’re dealing with here.” Melgren sentenced Stein to 30 years in prison.
“Our point about Trump was that he made what they believed seem legitimate,” Pratt said in an interview Monday.
Last week, Trump was very explicit in urging the mob to march on to the Capitol building to overturn the certification process and promised that he would be there with them though, of course, he instead went back to the White House where he was reportedly ‘delighted’ and ‘excited’ by what he saw of the unfolding riot from the safety of his perch.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said Friday that he heard from senior White House officials that President Trump was “delighted” to hear that his supporters were breaking into the Capitol building in a riot Wednesday that turned deadly.
“As this was unfolding on television, Donald Trump was walking around the White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to get into the building,” Sasse told conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt in an interview. “That was happening. He was delighted.”
As a result, you can expect that some of those charged with the riots will try to invoke that ‘Trump said it was ok’ defense too. This video that splices Trump’s speech with the actions of the rioters will be the kind of thing that the defense might try to use.
A defense lawyer thinks that this will be tried.
Pratt said that he expects lawyers representing the alleged insurrectionists to request leniency at sentencing by arguing that their clients were inspired to act by the sitting president of the United States.
“Certainly, I don’t think it’s going to play [well] for whoever killed that police officer,” Pratt said, referring to the Capitol Police officer who was beaten to death during the insurrection. “But if it’s someone who went into the rotunda and yelled at cops for a little bit and turned around and went out, I don’t know — it could work. I would make that argument.”
Will it work? They may have no other choice but to try.
These are adults we’re talking about, right? If they invoke the “Trump said it was OK” defense, will the court respond with the Maternal Objection: “if all your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you jump too?” Geeze, the stupid.
Actually, I think it’s a reasonable defence in this case. Obviously not in the case of the scum describing Somalis as “cockroaches” -- 30 years seems lenient, but then again it is 30 years in the barbaric US penal system, so there’s that.
But in that case Trump’s rhetoric was generalised. Here we’re talking about a very, very different thing: he very specifically exhorted his followers to come to the Capitol on a specific date. I remember the use of the word “wild”.
And pace mjr, this isn’t a case of “the bigger boys said it would be OK” -- this is a case of a sitting President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the US armed forces exhorting patriots to come to his defence against a group of people committing treason/insurrection/whatever by stealing the election he won by a landslide. Regardless of how ludicrous and unsupported by facts that all is, it’s WAY beyond “Donny told us to do it” territory. Regardless of what we on the left would like to be the case, he’s NOT just some bloviating dickhead in a bar -- he’s the PRESIDENT. And when he literally calls for people to come to the defence of the nation -- and in effect that’s what he did -- I can begin to understand why a certain sort of person absolutely would answer that call and would reasonably expect to be able to use those facts in their defence in this instance. I don’t like it, but I do understand it.
Oh -- one other thing: I think it’s a reasonable defence. It’s not one I think should *work* to the extent anyone could get off. I can see it mitigating sentencing, though.
sonofrojblake@#2:
I can begin to understand why a certain sort of person absolutely would answer that call and would reasonably expect to be able to use those facts in their defence in this instance. I don’t like it, but I do understand it.
Fair enough. Had the coup succeeded and Biden had called for a general strike and march on Washington, and everyone bring weapons and ammunition, I’d have probably groaned and run a patch through my rifle and loaded some clips.
I think the “if all your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you too?” challenge presupposes that jumping off a cliff is a bad idea. I don’t see it as arguing that any particular bad idea is bad, but rather that individuals have some responsibility to look and think before they leap.
A lot of the insurrectionists are sincere and believe that the US is under threat, etc. That they are also deluded is the tragedy. But, we can’t excuse the nazi “crowd participation exercise” as that they were sincere. They were sincere and that was the problem.
These are adults we’re talking about, right?
I almost think this is part of the problem. Far right culture seems to be stuck at age 13 for many people. The playing with toys that go “boom”! The “tactical” cosplay. The “You ain’t the boss of me” rhetoric and conversely the “daddy told me to do it” arguments.
I think a larger problem is that their sincere beliefs were based on what they were being told by their actual President AND a fair proportion of the news media (albeit what any educated person would regard as the loony fringe of that media).
The problem, I think, is that you can’t reasonably expect dumb yahoos to do the research and work out for themselves that:
-- their media is being manipulated by half a dozen foreign billionaires to keep them poor, stupid and content with that state
-- their duly elected President is flat out lying to them
In their minds what they did wasn’t insurrection, and that idea is in their minds because the media and President put it there. Is that entirely their fault? I think that’s actually hard to argue, especially given how quite of few of these people look like they have, to put it politely, special educational needs.
Not entirely. As you said, others are at fault as well. However, things don’t need to be entirely your fault in order for us to hold you responsible for your bad decisions. Besides, is anything ever “entirely” anyone’s fault, under any circumstances whatsoever? Presumably not. Yet people still end up being convicted for things they do.
Also, just to make a fairly general point, I don’t think intent should matter. So what that they were deliberately mislead by others and believed they were doing something heroic or patriotic or what have you? In fact, they were still engaged in a violent insurrection, which is needless to say anti-democratic and illegal. We should (and do) have laws to protect our society from actions like that, and whatever thoughts may have been circulating in their heads at the time (or at some other time) changes nothing. (It’s not clear if you’re arguing for lighter sentencing, but I think that’s worth saying anyway.)
And while it’s good to understand their motivations and so forth, it’s also important to put their wrong/confused/bullshit views into the right bucket while we’re comprehending them and not give them the wrong kind of weight or significance. Because we should care about reality, not tie our own hands because we care so damned much about the innermost thoughts of some (perhaps very delusional and/or craven) people who we know for a fact broke some of our laws. And if a person who did that happens to disagree, or they simply don’t believe it, are ignorant of the law, etc., then that doesn’t actually change anything relevant. And in particular, it shouldn’t change how we should deal with the situation we’re facing. The rest of us aren’t deluded/confused about it, nor are we lying about our knowledge/motivations in order to avoid the consequences of our actions like many of these people may be doing quite deliberately. So what could that possibly have to do with us, unless we’re buying into the conspiracy theorizing and the bullshitting and the lying ourselves?
It’s kind of frustrating how being a liar, a fraud, a bullshitter, or maybe just any old irrational person, is sometimes treated as if it were some kind of defense. It seems to happen much more when it’s a very powerful person like a politician or a CEO or whatever, someone who unlike most of us has all sorts of resources/assistants/etc. at their disposal which can help them know better. Yet somehow they’ve got even more excuses than the rest of us ever do.
Blame is not zero-sum. The person who incites the activity and the persons who carry it out can all be criminally liable.
I was going to point out that “the President said to” isn’t exonerating, but on re-reading the bolded text, I realized that they are actually expecting either pleadings or judgements of guilt, and are only requesting leniency for how long they stay in jail.
I suspect that the crowd could be loosely divided into two groups: on the one hand, those who have used violent rhetoric before and actually reveled in the use of violence, and have an actual record of violent crime, and on the other hand, those who don’t have such a history who were caught up in the moment and whose violence at the Capitol was minimal.
The defense might well work for those in the latter group, but I suspect that those in the former group have enough of a history of posting things like “Let’s hang the traitors in Congress” that the judge will look askance at protestations of obeying the President. I’ll bet that the ones who built the gallows fall into that group, too.
“And it’s not just coming from the right. The left has incredible attacks on conservative Christians. You can listen to that on MSNBC and other outlets that they have.”
I’m curious what he thinks these “incredible attacks” on MSNBC are.
If we keep shoving the consequences in their faces they can’t get away from it. It’s taking me effort not to just rant “9-11, Benghazi!” until some people leave.
Everyone remember another president who climbed on a tank and halted a coup?
How did no one say this yet!?
Repeat after me: “I was just following orders” is not an excuse. Throw the book at all of them.
The suggested defense reminds me of a Scooby Doo episode.
If those meddling [insert something here] hadn’t intervened then they’d be the winners and would have gotten away with it.
Repeat after me: “I was just following orders” is not an excuse. Throw the book at all of them.
Didn’t work very well at Nuremberg either.
If you can’t distinguish between herding captive people into ovens and trying to defend your country against what your President and news media are telling you is an incipient coup d’etat I don’t think there’s much to talk about. This has very little (not nothing) in common with Nuremberg.
sonofrojblake
I just cited the general legal principle that “I was just following orders” is not an excuse for stuff like warcrimes and treason. This legal principle is still taught to all US military officers today, and maybe all US soldiers, and it’s a well-accepted legal principle in the modern US military, and also in the US civilian courts to the extent that it would apply.
I didn’t cite Nuremberg explicitly. You’re the one projecting that onto what I wrote.
I didn’t make any sort of explicit or implicit comparisons either that you accuse me of.
Take that chip off your shoulder.
GerrardofTitanServer: not everything is about, or in reply to, you.
Pop quiz: what is the penultimate word of the post immediately before mine?
My browser search function (control F in Chrome) tells me that mine was the first comment to mention Nuremberg,