Incitement of insurrection may not perfectly capture Trump’s wrongdoing, but it is close enough for the Senate to do its Constitutional duty.
One of the excuses that Congressional Republicans and their media partisans are using to avoid impeaching and convicting Trump is that the 45th President of the United States, they say, did not actually incite the Jan. 6, 2021, riot that cause five deaths and scores of serious injuries.
Yet, the Article of Impeachment that the House of Representatives approved Jan. 13, 2021, charges Trump with an “incitement of insurrection.” Therefore, they argue, Trump cannot fairly be impeached and convicted because the charge against him does not match or correspond with what he did and did not do.
Acknowledgements. Some Congressional Republicans acknowledge that Trump may have provoked or inspired the mob to march on the Capitol to pressure Congress into not ratifying the electoral college results. However, they say, what he did is not legally defined as incitement.
Moreover, say many Congressional Republicans, the House Article of Impeachment errs by calling the violent riot at the Capitol an insurrection when it was, in fact, a riot.
Ergo: while Trump should be condemned for acting irresponsibly, he should not have been impeached by the House of Representatives and he should not be convicted of impeachment.
These are interesting legal arguments that address ancillary technical issues, but they are utterly irrelevant to the question of impeachment.
To paraphrase the former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, in a different context: You impeach and convict a dangerous and derelict president with the Articles of Impeachment you have, not the Articles of Impeachment you wish you had.
Again, impeachment is a political and not judicial act. Thus the power of impeachment is vested in the legislative and not judicial branch of government. Consequently, the legal standard for impeachment and conviction is less strict and exacting than it is in a court of criminal law.
At issue is not whether Trump violated a specific criminal statute, but rather whether his conduct as president was so grossly derelict and dangerous that he ought to be impeached and convicted by Congress.
Admittedly, this is a judgment call; but by the same token, very little judgment is needed to ascertain that what Trump did and did not do Jan. 6 was an utter abdication of his responsibilities as President of the United States.
And it isn’t just that one day, Jan. 6, for which Trump is being impeached. Instead, it is the entire two-month period that preceded Jan. 6, during which our disgraced ex-president willfully propagated lies about voter fraud while pursuing unconstitutional and extra-legal means for overturning a free, fair, and lawful election.
When that failed, Trump summoned the mob to Washington and urged them to march on the Capitol to steal the election that he had lost. He promised the mob that he would march with them (he lied); and, when violence erupted, Trump dithered.
He did nothing to restrain the mob, and he did nothing to ensure that peace, not violence, would prevail.
Oh, to be sure, Trump belatedly issued a couple of perfunctory tweets and a canned, scripted speech calling for the mob to be peaceful and respectful of law enforcement; but at the same time, he expressed love and empathy for the violent rioters while clearly making excuses for their violence:
Irrelevant Legalisms. So, did Trump “incite” the mob as the lawyers define it? Who knows and who cares? It doesn’t matter! What does matter is that Trump summoned, inspired, and provoked the mob.
Would it have been better if the House of Representatives had impeached Trump for dereliction of duty, as Andrew McCarthy argues? Perhaps. At the very least, Trump should have been impeached for dereliction of duty in addition to being impeached for incitement of insurrection.
But in the grand sweep of history, this is quibbling: because what history demands, and what history will remember, is that Trump committed heinous and impeachable acts; he was rightfully impeached; and he should, by all accounts, be convicted.
The exact article or charge that is used to impeach and convict Trump really is of secondary importance.
An incitement of insurrection is, as they say, close enough for government work. The charge adequately, if not completely, captures the impeachable offenses for which Trump is clearly and obviously guilty.
Now, if this were a criminal court, the actual charge would be of paramount importance. But again, this is not a criminal court; this is a legislative Court specifically empowered by the Constitution.
As such, the impeachment charge or article does not need to meet a criminal standard of exactitude.
Impeachable Offenses. Grossly undermining a free, fair, and lawful election conducted in accordance with the Constitution, while summoning a mob to attack and intimidate Congress so as to overturn the results of that election, is grounds enough for Congress to impeach and convict the president.
A charge of incitement of insurrection may not perfectly capture Trump’s wrongdoing, but it is close enough for the Senate to do its Constitutional duty, which it must.
Feature photo credit: The Trump insurrection against America, Jan. 6, 2021, courtesy of The London Economic.
