Members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have warned America for three years to take former President Donald Trump at his word.
Now, as Trump is poised to win the Republican presidential nomination, his criminal trials face delays that could stall them past Election Day, and his rhetoric grows increasingly authoritarian, some of those lawmakers find themselves following their own advice.
In mid-March, Trump said on social media that the committee members should be jailed. In December he vowed to be a dictator on “day one.” In August, he said he would “have no choice” but to lock up his political opponents.
“If he intends to eliminate our constitutional system and start arresting his political enemies, I guess I would be on that list,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose). “One thing I did learn on the committee is to pay attention and listen to what Trump says, because he means it.”
Lofgren added that she doesn’t yet have a plan in place to thwart potential retribution by Trump. But Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who has long been a burr in Trump’s side, said he’s having “real-time conversations” with his staff about how to make sure he stays safe if Trump follows through on his threats.
“We’re taking this seriously, because we have to,” Schiff said. “We’ve seen this movie before … and how perilous it is to ignore what someone is saying when they say they want to be a dictator.”
His crime was likely trespassing related. From my second link:
So Schaffer had business there, Baker was only there as part of the riot. So it makes complete sense for Baker to be charged and not Schaffer.
I didn’t find the specific charges in a quick search (it’s probably in the court fillings somewhere), but I don’t see any evidence to suggest it was because of “scary words” like he claims, that’s just how he chooses to represent it.
He was not supposed to be in Pelosi’s office or anywhere in the Capitol building, so he got charged with the rest of those involved in the riot.
If you have more details (i.e. the actual charges), I’m interested in looking it over. Perhaps I’m mistaken, I’m just using the evidence before me and it seems open and shut to me.
Good, you gave an actual thing he did and actually fell right into my point. Why was the 5th person through the broken window not prosecuted when he was also a journalist? You dont need to be displaying credentials to be press. I love how you claim to be a libertarian but then want them to go after journalists for being journalists, totally libertarian!
Prove it. He is literally on video doing journalism.
It has nothing to do with “being press,” it has to do with trespassing. One was invited to be there, the other wasn’t, so there’s an argument that they would be treated differently under the law. It’s simple property rights, which any libertarian should understand…
My opinion is they should both be charged because both are obviously not there through the normal, accepted means. But prosecuting everyone is unreasonable, and largely a waste of the court’s time.
He is on video illegally trespassing. You can do both journalism and trespassing at the same time. Likewise, speech can also be illegal in certain circumstances as well, so I’m guessing there was some of that as well. You can also hear him admit to intent to steal federal property (Pelosi’s computer), which may or may not hold up in court.
So what I see is:
So I agree that he should be charged and have his day in court. The government obviously has the obligation to prove guilt, and the video evidence and his own words would certainly be evidence there.
Exactly, if it was about them being where they were not supposed to be then the other 30 or so journalist that were there should all be under arrest and being prosecuted. Why is it only three of them that are conservative leaning, not the CNN guy that was the 5th through the broken window? Or any of the others?
Who is the CNN guy you’re talking about? I’m not seeing any decent sources for anyone beyond the first four who entered through the window, to who were all charged.
My understanding is that CNN didn’t have any journalists there, other than those already inside the capitol. If you have solid sources to the contrary, please link them.
Most of the people there were obviously conservatives, else why would they be there? There were certainly some independent journalists and whatnot, but my understanding is that the ones causing the damage and riling up the crowds were largely far right activists.
Sorry it was the NYT not CNN, and it was actually 60 other journalists were there not 30.
Because they were journalists covering a story, literally just like the guy this story is about is not a conservative. He just didnt treat jan 6th like a sacred event like he was supposed to.
If all he did was trespass like all of the other 60 journalists, why are they all not getting the same treatement?
There’s also motive and intent. A journalist trespassing to record is a very different thing from a protester trespassing to damage property and hurt people. I would need to see the court documents to know what precisely a given individual was charged with and the arguments for and against it to get a feel for why they were targeted. The goal in prosecuting events like this isn’t to catch everyone, but to catch enough people to prevent something similar from happening again.
The facts are:
There absolutely needs to be a legal response to that, but it’s impractical and probably undesirable to charge everyone involved, only the worst offenders. If you can show that some of those other individuals were worse offenders, that would make a compelling argument. However, just throwing out whataboutism isn’t going to convince me and just sounds like conspiracy nonsense to me.
Their “intent” is based off the joke that you quoted earlier which is the government using a joke. And you keep moving the goalposts all over the field here. If tresspassing is a crime, then its a crime, intent doesnt matter and ALL the journalists should be charged, but now you care about intent.
Great points a lot of people were injured and killed, and property was damaged, so people need to be prosecuted. If this is true since probably 100x more happened during the George Floyd riots, why do there seem to be less prosecutions?