Growing Evidence Capitol Assault Was Planned Weakens Incitement Case Against Trump

Growing Evidence Capitol Assault Was Planned Weakens Incitement Case Against Trump

Via Just The News:

Growing evidence of advance planning and coordination of the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol undermines claims that the rioters were responding spontaneously to former President Trump’s speech to supporters about a mile and a half away, according to legal and intelligence experts.

As Senate Democrats mull their options for convicting or censuring Trump and banning him from future public office for allegedly inciting insurrection, experts said their incitement case against him was dealt a severe blow this week when federal prosecutors charged three men in the Capitol attack, alleging their communication and coordination dated back to November. 

For speech to meet the threshold of incitement, a speaker must, first, indicate a desire for violence and, second, demonstrate a capability or reasonable indication of capability to carry out the violence, according to Kevin Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI.

In Trump’s case, Brock said, there were neither.

In an interview Wednesday, Brock told Just the News he listened to Trump’s entire Jan. 6 speech. “I didn’t hear a single word about — or anything that would trigger a reasonable person to believe that he was inciting— violence,” he said. “He even used the words ‘peaceful’ and ‘respectful.'”

Brock thinks that Trump “was caught by surprise at what happened” and was probably unaware of the segment of the crowd intent on violence. That was “a failure, frankly, on the intelligence that he should have been provided as president of the United States,” Brock said. “We shouldn’t be in a position where knuckleheads like Proud Boys and Oath Keepers can plan a disruptive violent event and it catches us by surprise.” 

Still unanswered are questions about how much House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell knew in advance of the potential for violence and when they knew it. Also unresolved are lingering questions surrounding the Pentagon’s pre-attack offer to send National Guard troops to reinforce the Capitol Police.

Brock, former principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center(NCTC), noted that Trump did use the word “march” in encouraging his supporters to march to the Capitol and voice their dissent during the floor proceedings to formally certify the 2020 Electoral College vote.

“But ‘march’ — we’ve had peaceful marches as part of our history — doesn’t necessarily indicate automatic, violent response,” Brock said. “So I think they’d be hard-pressed to prove that he was using words that were inciting violence.”

“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” Trump said during his speech at the Ellipse. according to a transcript. “Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.”

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