Michael F Schundler
2 min readJul 30, 2022

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I don't think charges against Trump regarding January 6th will amount to anything. As mounting evidence not widely distributed by the media indicates that Trump is not guilty for the riots, but if anything the Mayor of DC and and those responsible for security of the Capitol are.

You need to realize what you are hearing in the January 6th hearings are cherry picked to frame the argument that Trump "conspired" to undermine the government. But those accusation largely fall apart when the evidence not being shared with the public is made known.

For example, on January 3rd, Trump authorized 20,000 National Guard troops to insure the January 6th protests were peaceful, but he had no Constitutional authority to deploy the troops. Under the current law, the Mayor of DC is the only one that can request "authorized" National Guard troops to be deployed to keep the peace in DC (in other states, the governors can make that request... remember the Wisconsin riots played out the same way). Unknown is whether the mayor realized they were available, but the fact that she did make a request following January 6th and the troops were immediately deployed suggests she did know.

Second, the heads of Capitol security have already been forced to resign due to their failures to secure the Capitol. The President has no authority over Capitol security, but one of the people that does have authority is Nancy Pelosi. Again, did she know Trump had authorized National Guard troops? And if she did, why did she fail to request their deployment?

In other words, now arguing that Trump does not have free speech rights to give the speech he did on January 6th especially since he made clear he wanted peaceful protests, makes it hard to argue he directed the attack against the Capitol.

At best the real argument against Trump is he should have accepted the election results (no law requires that he does) or that he used poor judgement calling for protests that he should have known could turn violent (an argument that could be made against many Democratic members of Congress including Maxine Waters and Chuck Schumer... on the White House steps). Arguably, Democratic Congressional leaders are "responsible" for the actions of armed citizens against Supreme Court Justices, if the logic is pursued.

Finally, when you look at the verdicts being levied against the protestors, very few include insurrection. So if there was an "insurrection", who were they?

Don't confuse "good made for TV drama" with facts. Trump probably is guilty of ill judgement, but that is not a crime. Finally, the support for charges falls along partisan lines and like the recent Durham trial demonstrated, those cases have almost no chance in court. Garland knows all of this, and the DOJ hates to lose in court, so while he may be pressured to file charges, he may do so, and then when the noise settles drop them. The Mueller investigation is probably a good example of the future of any "charges". At the end of the day, Mueller could not even define what the charges would be.

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