Hacker News Reader

Comment by asxd | Hacker News Reader

Sure, it's up to interpretation, but I think we're fooling ourselves a bit to say he didn't incite violence. People raided the capitol on his behalf. His rhetoric must have had something to do with that.

View on HN

I think morally he did. And he should be impeached for both that and his inaction in response to that.

But the statement was "inciting violence is illegal". Which involves the law. That's a different question.

>I think morally he did. And he should be impeached for both that and his inaction in response to that.

And an impeachment trial is not an Article III court. Nor is it intended to be. It is inherently a political proceeding and not a criminal trial. As such, ethics and morals are certainly at issue and the rules of Article III courts are not relevant.

Nor did the founders intend[0][1] them to be criminal trials. Which is why someone who is impeached and convicted is not immune from criminal prosecution in an Article III court.

[0] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp

[1] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed66.asp

Parent is actually right, it is unlikely that Trump's speech met the legal standard for inciting violence. However most legal scholars agree that impeachment does not depend on having been convicted of a crime.

Here's a lawyer's video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwqAInN9HWI

“Everyone” collectively knowing someone incited violence unequivocally is very different than proving, in a court of law, that said person incited violence. As another commented, it’s actually really difficult to do because you must prove intent and state of mind. It’s part of why I’m surprised that’s the only charge on the impeachment, despite there being a potentially more clear cut issue, legal wise, that happened the weekend before (call with Georgia election officials).

That actually is referenced in the full text of the impeachment resolution[1]:

"President Trump’s conduct on January 6, 2021, followed his prior efforts to subvert and obstruct the certification of the results of the 2020 Presidential election. Those prior efforts included a phone call on January 2, 2021, during which President Trump urged the secretary of state of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to overturn the Georgia Presidential election results and threatened Secretary Raffensperger if he failed to do so."

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolutio...

> “Everyone” collectively knowing someone incited violence unequivocally is very different than proving, in a court of law, that said person incited violence. As another commented, it’s actually really difficult to do because you must prove intent and state of mind. It’s part of why I’m surprised that’s the only charge on the impeachment, despite there being a potentially more clear cut issue, legal wise, that happened the weekend before (call with Georgia election officials).

Impeachment may be shaped like legal process, and the final act may be called a “trial” and supervised by the Cheif Justice, but its a political process, and the difficulty of proving things “in a court of law” is pretty much irrelevant except to the extent that comparisons to a court of law may be provide political rationalizations for actions in the impeachment or trial process.

(IIRC, one version of the bill of impeachment had a second article related to Abuse of Power with regard to the Georgia election call, but that was eliminated in favor of making the issues regarding the call part of the context for the insurrection charge, rather than a separate charge.)

>Everyone” collectively knowing someone incited violence unequivocally is very different than proving, in a court of law,

Proving criminal liability is not required[0] in an impeachment trial.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25786125

Yeah, I agree that usually it wouldn’t matter as impeachment trials are not held to the same standards, but a senator could argue a similar angle though. It only takes one charge to convict, so I don’t understand why one wouldn’t one more options, not less.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com