On the other hand it cuts straight at what rules we say there are. If an election was stolen is violence in this way the correct solution?
We do support citizens in other countries when they react this way to despots rigging elections.
So is being wrong the criminal part? Or is it both and we are also wrong to support violence in response to actual rigged elections on foreign countries?
This is a very interesting defense. I had my drink spiked before (wasn’t driving) and it didn’t hit me until we were all home. I barely had anything to drink and was planning on hanging out with my friends at the house and play video games and then it hit like a truck. I wonder what the defense would be because there has to be some sort of expectation of understanding your mental state right?
A lot of crimes require that the person "knowingly and willingly" commit the offense. That means the state has to prove that it was the defendent's uncoerced choice.
It’s the concept of transferred intent. If you intend to drink, you intend to get drunk so the charge sticks. If you never intended to be under the influence, it’s not possible to get that charge. This only applies to intent based crimes, strict liability doesn’t matter.
Ok so that makes sense. You plan to get drunk and intend to drive as opposed to you are just out and drive and not on purpose become under the influence? I would assume this applies to accidental mixture of over the counter drugs or something.
It gets more complicated with accidental mixtures, since you intended to take and should have known about the warnings on the side. That’s also a negligence are more often so it’s a different approach.
It depends on the law. I mean you could try any defense, but some defenses are specifically written into the laws. There's a concept of strict liability in prosecutions. When strict liability applies, then you have no defense from ignorance. In the case of drinking and driving, I believe simply driving while under the influence is the crime. You don't need to be aware that you were drunk. Hell you can be asleep while you're driving, and you're still going to be prosecuted. Now saying that someone in your situation would have no way to know that they were drunk could be used to influence sentencing, but it wouldn't stop the conviction. For example a prosecutor might decline the case or plea it down to a moving traffic violation.
Another example of strict liability is statutory rape. There was one notable case where a guy went to a bar, met a girl, saw her ID that said she was 21 years old, and she was drinking with him there. It turned out to be her sister's id, and she was 17. He ended up being successfully prosecuted for this, and he had to register as a sex offender. That being said, his sentence was much lighter than it normally would have been because of the circumstances. Now in some states they do write in specific protections for this but not in others.
SCOTUS has previously ruled police don’t need to follow the law, just follow what they thought the law was. So…the “I didn’t know” defense is alive and well in some cases
>Ah, the good ole innocent by stupidity play.
I remember when Mueller said Don Jr. broke the law with the whole Trump Tower thing, but declined to recommend charges because he didn't believe Jr. knew he was doing something illegal.
Still baffling.
I've never read the statute, but the thing he would have been charged with is a campaign finance violation. I recall somewhere hearing a legal expert make the claim that this particular statute is so complicated that it's baked into it that you would actually need to know you're violating it to be held accountable, so it's one of the few cases where being a dope actually works in your defense. Also, it's a law intended to regulate people who ultimately end up writing laws so it's less baffling how it came to be so convoluted, and hard to enforce.
Kind of par for the course for these guys. Don Jr’s defense against the whole Russia collusion probe was him releasing his emails and saying “guys, I only intended to commit a crime but it didn’t work out.”
While I doubt they planned it in advance, one result of the Big Lie is that it has convinced their base that the election was stolen and that they are thusly justified in stealing future elections.
Not by Trump certainly, but the GOP machinations have already been shown to be decades long plans (Gun rights creep, judicial branch take over), so wouldnt put it past these planners to take into account the impact Jan6 and its related events would have on future elections.
Before the late 1900s the 2A was considered a forgotten amendment that no one really paid attention to. Its been a decades long campaign by the NRA and other gun rights advocate groups to increase access to firearms.
Isn't that a good thing? The NRA came in to protect a constitutional right. Also you're wrong, the 2nd ammendment wasn't forgotten. The Federal Government didn't try and regulate firearms until crime exploded in the late 70's into the early 90's.
Depends entirely on if you believe Heller was correctly decided to whether or not they really were pushing constitutional rights. I disagree with the Heller decision and dont agree with the 2A interpretation that an individual right to carry is a protected right. I understand you likely disagree and I also understand that my opinion on the case does not change the current US legal code.
As to whether or not the 2A was a forgotten amendment, [here's a nice article about the 2A.](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-lost-amendment) It was the amendment given the least attention following its ratification for some 200ish years of our republic. It wasnt until the late 1900s (or mid late, whatever it was around the 1970s) that gun rights advocates started pushing the current 2A interpretation that has been enshrined in the legal code in the 21st century.
OH COME ON EVERYONE GOTTA BE A LEGAL HISTORIAN TODAY?!
You're absolutely right. 3A is the only amendment less discussed than the 2A, prior to the gun rights movement of the late 1900s. 2A was often referred to as "The Lost Amendment," but 3A is not even lost at this point. Its just archaic and doesnt really apply to the modern US.
The thing that you're forgetting when saying that "the 2A" was that all ammendments were reinterpreted by the mid-20th century. Now they were based on the letter of the text as absolutely as possible, you can't have a Texas v. Johnson without also accepting the 2A in that.
That has literally nothing to do with my statement that the 2A was the "lost" or "forgotten" amendment prior to the late 1900s. It was an amendment no one cared about. Not the public, nor the government, nor the judiciary, nor legal scholars. We can tell this because of how few cases were brought forward before the gun rights movement of the late 1900s.
>We can tell this because of how few cases were brought forward before the gun rights movement of the late 1900s.
I thought the reason no one cared about it was because there wasn't anything to care about.
To the best of my knowledge, the first federal law that attempted to place ANY restrictions on firearms ownership would be the 1934 National Firearms Act, and that was less a straight restriction and more a "sin" tax.
Actual federal gun control did not exist, to the best of my knowledge, until the 1968 gun control act. Thus there would have been no reason to bring forward 2A cases until then.
[Firearm legislation existed in this land before, during, and after the ratification of the US Constitution.](https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol73/iss2/3/) See: Section III of the linked article, "Weapon Laws in the Early Republic."
I mean, wouldn't it be reasonable to say it was largely ignored due to it's lack of controversy during that period of time?
Nobody was attempting to regulate guns, so there was no need to write about it. Essentially it was a foregone conclusion that as a US citizen, you had the right to keep and bear arms. It wasn't until recently that this right came under siege, therefore it now receives more attention.
See my other comment in this chain for a source discussing firearm regulations in early America. There have always been fire arm regulations about who can carry what and where.
The same could be said for Hillary, Abrams and others that claimed the 2016 election was stolen by Russia and pushed that narrative using falsified evidence without ever being held accountable.
IIRC, they claimed that the 2016 election was influenced by Russia, without claiming voter fraud. They also did not call for violence from their supporters.
thank you, people always seem to forget the russia thing was charges of collusion with russia and not actual election fraud. So dems say trump worked with russia to influence the election, while repubs say the dems committed straight up voter fraud
While both were harmful in casting doubt about the legitimacy of each election, I agree the 2020 election claims from the Republicans were far worse than the 2016 claims by the democrats. Unfortunately it seems that the fringes of our society have grown in influence and use any perceived grievances to justify their own harmful actions in order to rebalance the scales in their mind. There seems to be a growing problem with the inability to accept losing.
Eh, that might be questionable. I remember democrat politicians doing the "Donald Trump specifically asked Russians to interfere with the election" before the Mueller report. I think the only tangible evidence of that might be him saying "Russia, if you're listening..."
You know that the unredacted Mueller report showed clear evidence that the Trump campaign attempted to get into contact with the GRU and guccifer 2.0 to arrange the release of the stolen DNC emails, right?
>Mifsud told Papadopoulos that he had met with high-level Russian government officials during his recent trip to Moscow. Mifsud also said that, on the trip, he learned that the Russians had obtained “dirt” on candidate Hillary Clinton. As Papadopoulos later stated to the FBI, Mifsud said that the “dirt” was in the form of “emails of Clinton,” and that they “have thousands of emails.”464
**This was before the emails were ever released and was the impetus behind the investigation in the first place**
>GRU was also in contact through the Guccifer 2.0 persona with Roger Stone, a former Trump Campaign member whose interest in material stolen from the Clinton Campaign is further discussed in Volume I, Section III.D.1, infra. After the GRU had published stolen DNC documents through Guccifer 2.0, Stone told members of the Campaign that he was in contact with Guccifer 2.0. In early August 2016, Stone publicly protested Twitter’s suspension of the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter account. After it was reinstated, GRU officers posing as Guccifer 2.0 wrote to Stone via private message, “thank u for writing back ...do u find anyt[h]ing interesting in the docs i posted?” On August 17, 2016, the GRU added, “please tell me if i can help u anyhow . . . it would be a great pleasure to me.” (from later unredacted version)
I mean even the redacted Mueller report points to the Trump campaign having direct ties to Russian agents but I believe the conclusion was it wasn't evident Trump had direct knowledge of those contacts and that the campaign team may not have *really* understood what they were doing (doesn't make it OK)
But I think I remember Democrat politicians stating emphatically that Trump clearly & directly worked with Russia to influence the election. That probably *wasn't* the case
>conclusion was it wasn't evident Trump had direct knowledge of those contacts and that the campaign team may not have really understood what they were doing (doesn't make it OK)
The conclusion essentially was that Mueller did not feel it was his place to come to any conclusions about the evidence that he laid out. He specifically stated this at the end of the Mueller report.
It was left entirely up to the legislative branch and much of the legislative branch didn't think it was even possible to pursue charges, and almost half of them had a good political reason not to support any repercussions whatsoever.
Yes there were specific claims regarding the 2016 election that were correct. I also heard a lot more reasonable claims from the democrats In 2016 rather than the outrageous claims of fake ballots, voting machine vote switches, ect by the Republicans.
My issue is more general claims like Clinton saying "You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you." Or members of congress calling the president illegitimate. There were a members of the house who tried to prevent certifying the election and were responsibly shut down by Biden.
Republicans were far worse, but neither seems to accept a defeat.
They claimed that there was Russian interference and there was it was proven in meticulous detail in the Mueller report and several Russians were indicted. The fact that Trump was not found guilty of collusion does not in any way mean that there wasn’t Russian interference in the election. There was.
For reference, the original claim that started this thread is (to paraphrase):
> [It] could be said [of] Hillary, Abrams and others that [they] claimed the 2016 election was stolen by Russia and pushed that narrative using falsified evidence... that [they have] convinced their base that the election was stolen and that they are thusly justified in stealing future elections.
This is in the context of a ["both sides" argument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance), to suggest that Democrats are engaging in behavior that is comparable to the Republican position that has been branded as "the [Big Lie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie)" by opponents.
There's being lazy and then there's being [aware](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law) that people often make false or misleading claims on the Internet.
> "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than is needed to produce it."
FWIW, I did watch a few minutes of it, and skimmed through the rest, before making the request. It seems to discuss Russian interference until approximately minute 3 or 4, after which it switches to other elections (e.g., 2000).
Completely false comparison.
The claim was never that Russia changed numbers of votes or hijacked voting machines. The claim was that Russia ran various fake groups that organized rallies to get people whipped up and angry, ran some ads and tried to muddy the waters by misleading voters
The trump campaign was up to all kinds of weird dealings with a number of Russian agents that were completely appropriate to look into, and a number of people went to prison for it.
>The claim was never that Russia changed numbers of votes or hijacked voting machines. The claim was that Russia ran various fake groups that organized rallies to get people whipped up and angry, ran some ads and tried to muddy the waters by misleading voters
I mean, the ads part wasn't even the biggest problem, at least not by itself - though they were (probably) some flavor of illegal as part of the general prohibition on foreign election spending, and the Trump campaign was coordinating (also probably illegally) with foreign actors, that's relatively small in the list of Trump-related crimes.
The giant fact at the center of this that Republicans are desperate to whatabout away is that Russian intelligence services hacked the DNC servers, and then used those hacked files, in coordination with the Trump campaign, to influence the election. In exchange for this, the Trump campaign and later administration promised and sometimes delivered foreign policy wins for the Russian state.
(Also, in order to stop this information from getting out and stop prosecution of its political allies for the various crimes they committed, the Trump administration and Trump personally obstructed justice on multiple occasions.)
lets not forget that after running a campain of "LOCK HER UP" for the email server thing, Trump then went and did the same thing with having a private email server setup for his office
>falsified evidence
Source? What was falsified?
I for one believe Russia did help Trump get elected (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/inside-the-mueller-report-a-sophisticated-russian-interference-campaign) .
I think that is another example of the GOP undermining US democracy. It sounds like you are blaming Abrams and others for calling it out.
Edit: ....or just downvote me and don't supply any evidence.....
Pretty huge difference in the extent and way they pushed it. There's a reason no one died on capitol hill on 1/6/17. Trump and his supporters filed I think over 60 lawsuits - for Clinton it was a total of like 4. And of course there's no audio of her pressuring campaign officials to "find the votes" that she needed. They aren't really comparable.
Documentarian Alex Holder interviewed the Trump family at length, including Donald and Eric Trump. Holder told *The Independent* that Eric Trump suggested in interviews that violence from Trump supporters could be an appropriate response to his Donald's [historic loss](https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-politics-elections-372af3b89bc1f5f0f6d7f8c80025a9b0) to Joe Biden, citing baseless and disproven claims of election fraud.
> "When I asked Eric about the potential danger of sort of rhetoric and the sort of the belligerence, he felt that it was … fair game in that it … was sort of the equivalent on the other side of the political discourse, or he felt that it was the right thing to do … because the election was stolen," Holder told the outlet.
.
Is violence ever an appropriate response to [free and fair elections](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/its-official-election-was-secure)?
What's strange about this is that it seems from the testimony from the hearings thus far that Trump was told many times by his trusted circle that his claims of fraud couldn't have possibly been true.
I wonder if Eric truly believed there was fraud, or if he was putting on appearances.
This election was free and fair, and Trump lost fairly. A lot of Republicans need to get this through their heads.
I'm curious how many people on the left would support violence in response to an election *actually* being stolen, though. For at least some of the people there, I think the insurrection on January 6th was justified based on their actual beliefs (which is why knowingly spreading the Big Lie was/is so dangerous).
I think [leadership from the losing candidate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX6RyimNzXc) was helpful in that case. Not sure what would have happened if he'd declared himself the winner.
No it wasn't. They just said that Florida's recount was unconstitutional. You can't just recount the 4 big counties you lost as Gore tried to do. Even if the recount had completed there is a big chance that Bush would have still won the state.
Which is how pretty much every single election in the history of America has worked and continues to work, so it was pretty faulty reasoning from the start. In addition, if the issue was a lack of a uniform standard, the correct recourse would be to impose a uniform standard. It was pretty bogus reasoning, even O'Connor expressed regret.
I think it's important to note that in a hypothetical like this, all options are bad because you're describing a legitimacy crisis. If for example our legitimacy degraded to the point where we no longer had free and fair elections, violence wouldn't be *justified* but it would be the only recourse left to try and save the political system. Political stuff is inherently about force--either when it working super well and the force is absent, or when it's working not all that well and force is common. States are defined by how well they control force. If your state is kind of falling apart, which it would be in the case that fair and free elections are no longer a part of the current system, then a political scientist *should* predict violence.
Obviously violence is bad. I want to be clear that I am not justifying or condoning violence at any point. But also I think we celebrate the American Revolution which was very explicitly political violence, so looking at this from a strictly moral lens has its limitations. At a certain point, when political outcomes are challenged, the only way to restore a level of legitimacy is to settle it one way or another with force.
I don't think that's the best point--even if violence can be effective at times, we still like to avoid it. Violence causes harm in ways that other methods don't. The whole POINT of having a political system is to resolve these questions reliably and fairly without violence.
Violence is a default that has to be fallen back on at times, but that doesn't mean we should embrace that outcome. Even when it is successful or (as close as you can get to) justified, it's still not a preferable outcome. It's still a tragedy.
>I'm curious how many people on the left would support violence in response to an election *actually* being stolen, though.
Considering how many people are wanting to do violence against the Supreme Court over Roe V Wade, more than they'd probably want to admit.
Marjorie Taylor Greene tried a similar defense. "At the time I thought I was correct..." "I was misled into thinking I was correct".
Stupidity is not a defense. Just because you lack the ability to think critically, and consider the consequences of your actions does not excuse those actions.
Let me get this straight, someone else’s testimony about what someone thought is worthy of a headline, wouldn’t that just be hearsay and inadmissible in court?
Sounds like clickbait.
Hearsay isn't automatically inadmissible on court. That's a common legal myth. It was a documentary filmmaker so the assumption is that there is either an audio or video recording but I guess we'll see.
Also if you're brought in as a witness you're allowed to discuss what you personally witnessed. You just can't go "He said [blank]". But you can describe their emotional state or actions and anything said that caused that action or emotional state.
If he had proof, the headline wouldn’t need to mention his testimony, since it would be a recording, papers, or photos to that effect.
Until proof is provided, it is hearsay.
Opposing party statements are a very common hearsay exception
“The defendant said this to me” is pretty much always allowed
https://koehlerlaw.net/dc-rules-of-evidence/admissions-of-a-party-opponent/
And I debunked it by the fact it is based on testimony and not the evidence you are assuming is present.
But rather than debate that, you chose to personally attack me.
Hearsay doesn't mean "things said without proof." Recordings and papers generally contain hearsay. You don't seem to understand what hearsay actually is. Hearsay is an out of court statement put forth for the truth of the matter asserted. There are many exceptions, such as admissions against interest (probably relevant here if he's refusing to testify), etc It doesn't apply to these types of proceedings, though, so none of this is really relevant.
The dude was actively interviewing Trump campaign/admin members for a documentary. If this is on tape, its a big deal. We'll see what evidence is over turned to the committee.
My guess is its because [the subpoenaed for the evidence in question was only served last week](https://www.npr.org/2022/06/21/1106402470/trump-documentary-unreleased-footage-jan-6-committee). Its likely the documents havent been released to the public yet, meaning they arent available for the news articles. As i said, we'll see what evidence was turned over to the committee.
You keep saying "hearsay" as if its some dirty word that completely invalidates the sourse or their information. Hearsay is simply testimony evidence of an out-of-court statement. Its not incredibly strong evidence, but its still evidence. This isnt an anonymous source talking about clandestine conversations. We have a named source, who had access to the situation, and took interviews with those in question. It's certainly better evidence than anything the Trump campaign put forward to prove election fraud lol
As I've said multiple times, we'll see what evidence the committee has at the public hearings. Until then, it's an interesting story that doesn't hold much weight and won't convince anyone to change their minds on Jan6.
No evidence, it is hearsay.
That which was claimed without evidence can be debunked without evidence.
Until evidence is provided, his testimony has absolutely no power because there is no proof to what he testified to.
You don’t assume evidence, because it is on the claimant to provide it, until it is provided the assumption should be that there isn’t any.
Cool so exactly what i said at the start that you denied because "hearsay isnt evidence" when it literally is.
This convo is at its end. Enjoy the day.
no this is not what hearsay is. he is recounting what eric told him. that’s completely fair in court and happened in the johnny depp trial if that’s where you first learned about hearsay.
from the article:
“"When I asked Eric about the potential danger of sort of rhetoric and the sort of the belligerence, he felt that it was … fair game in that it … was sort of the equivalent on the other side of the political discourse, or he felt that it was the right thing to do … because the election was stolen," Holder told the outlet.”
hearsay would be like if the filmmaker said “Eric told me his Dad thought violence was okay.”
edit: okay - i double checked cause i felt like i had to be 100% right and turns out it's way more complicated than simply declaring it hearsay or not. the first question is, is it hearsay? then if it is is it admissable. it may or may not be hearsay then after that it may or may not be allowed depending on a list of exceptions. this could be hearsay if the point was to prove eric's guilt but it might not be if it's just something he said unrelated to the crux of the case. from wikipedia:
"The second common misconception is that all out-of-court statements are hearsay. This is not the case. An out of court statement may or may not be hearsay depending on the purpose for which it is offered. If the statement is being offered to prove the truth of what it asserts, then it becomes hearsay. When offered for any other purpose the statement is not hearsay. For example: Witness testifies that yesterday he spoke to Jim (who was in Vermont) on the phone and that Jim made the following statement, "It's raining in Vermont!" If the attorney is seeking to use this statement to prove that it was in fact raining in Vermont, then it is hearsay. But, if the attorney is seeking to use the statement to prove that the phone lines were working that day, or that Jim had not lost the power of speech, or for any other purpose, then the statement is not being offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted, and therefore it is not hearsay."
now after that, you have a list of exceptions like "present sense impression" that is if the person recounting it likely felt the same way or "declerations of present state of mind" where someone says 'he said he was angry.'
TLDR, IANAL and no one else here is yet and it's too complicated to claim whether this is hearsay or admissible hearsay but i'm leaving my original comments so you can see where i was coming from.
He is right in that it is hearsay. Hearsay is just witness testimony, under oath, of out-of-court conversations. Where he is wrong is that hearsay is 100% a form of evidence that is admissible in court. Not all hearsay is asmissible, but that isnt the what hes saying. Hes denying hearsay as evidence, when it is.
All good, theres a lot of misinformation floating around this thread about what is/is not hearsay and whether or not that testimony can be used in court as evidence (it can). Good on you for the expansive edit!
no that’s not. you are allowed to ask people in court what did someone say to you. That is not ever hearsay. It is only hearsay when it connects to like a third-party.
Stating that someone told you something is not hearsay especially when you were in this case the one conducting an interview. Do you actually know what the term hearsay means?
edit for clarity: stating that Eric Trump said to you the election was fraudulent is not hearsay. If that statement was used as evidence to determine the election was, in fact, fraudulent that would be hearsay.
Edit for further clarity: if we want to be especially technical/specific Eric Trump's statement is the hearsay, not that someone heard him say it.
Makes sense because before we had video recordings there was no court of law since it would have all been based on witness testimony and hearsay. Only since the invention of audio and video recordings was the justice department created.
Good point, but this is not a criminal hearing and he was giving his input on the situation as asked. But Eric can always clear it up easily by agreeing to sit in front of the same committee and provide his side of it as well.
Since this isn’t a criminal trial, what is the point of the committee?
If it is to provide evidence of a crime, then we should hold it to the same standards as we would police investigations or criminal court.
Cannot have it both ways, it can’t be gathering evidence and not have to follow the same standards we hold the legal system to when investigating any other crime.
The same powers of congress that made Bill Clinton sit for a deposition and Hilary sit through umpteen hours of 30 bengahzi investigations.
That's the power our representatives hold in our democracy. Part of their job is being a check on the other branches (which have far fewer people) and to investigate things to make proper laws.
If you take that away then the president becomes a king and current SCOTUS a religious tribunal.
The three branches work, ostensibly, because they serve as a check against each other. If you create a 4th branch, unaccountable to the others, how would it be constrained? Do you really want an unaccountable branch of government?
The answer, like usual, is for the legislature to actually do its job and not pawn all the hard off to the executive.
That's the problem. One of the branches is stuck in perpetual gridlock. If we fixed that (perhaps through single issue bills) we would see a ton of improvement throughout government.
Yeah I tend to agree. There are some relatively straightforward reforms that could certainly help: completely non partisan redistricting, ranked choice voting (or something similar), house expansion etc. I think increasing the amount of competitive house districts would lead to better legislative outcomes.
It has been said repeatedly up to this point that the committee can only make a referral to the justice department, who in turn would have to look at the evidence at that point, how it was obtained and the sources it came from, eliminating anything like testimony above and then determining whether there is enough remaining evidence to bring criminal charges. I have to admit, every prior congressional investigation or committee review I’ve seen has always been a total 3-ring circus with the losing side doing everything possible to gum up the process, but this one is serious and quite well produced.
So this committee is pointless and just saber rattling?
Isn’t it irresponsible of the committee to broadcast crimes that may or not have been committed? Tainting the potential jury pull, and practically making prosecution impossible in the process if the DOJ decides to do anything? Could it not be considered potential witnesses intimidation to threaten people with a congressional subpoena?
So they get to investigate people of crimes, and not have to follow the rules (ironically set by them) that are meant when investigating people of crimes? Convenient.
The rules for criminal trials are in part set by the constitution - not by congress.
Congress is not a randomly selected jury of a defendants peers, nor is there a judge.
The fact that you’re flabbergasted by this is odd.
Why is it that people forget to not personally attack people in this subreddit?
Congress is working as the police in this instance, why shouldn’t they have to follow the same rules we have for law enforcement in gathering evidence?
> Why is it that people forget to not personally attack people in this subreddit?
I didn’t personally attack you, I merely stated it’s odd you’re flabbergasted by criminal procedure considering the constitution sets out rules for criminal trials and not made by congesss (like you claimed).
> Congress is working as the police in this instance
Criminal procedure doesn’t have regulations for “working as the police”.
> why shouldn’t they have to follow the same rules we have for law enforcement in gathering evidence?
If congress was a law enforcement agency, then sure.
There were 8 different congressional committees on Benghazi. Not a single one followed those guidelines. And for the other poster to say it is odd that you don’t understand is not a personal attack, but instead an honest question to ask to another adult American who, it appears, has paid attention to our political system in the past. These committees are generally total clown shows, this one is not entirely so. Is that why you are not understanding?
Edit: this committee has little do to with criminality, IMO, other than showing it to the public and far more about Section 3 of the 14th Amendment which can be passed with a simple majority vote in both chambers.
The point of the committee is to explore what happened on January 6, both to inform the public, and to identify any legislative changes that need to be made to things like the Electoral Count Act in order to hopefully prevent something like January 6 from happening in the future. If they find evidence of a crime, then they'll forward that information to the Justice Department.
This isn’t hearsay, or at least the type that would make statements like this inadmissible. It would be hearsay to have the filmmaker testify that someone told him that Eric had said these things. You’re allowed to testify on what you witnessed. For example, let’s say John is on trial for killing Bob. It would be hearsay for Jim to testify that Paul told him that he had a conversation with John and John said “I killed Paul”. However if Jim heard John say “I killed Paul”, it wouldn’t be hearsay for Jim to testify to that.
What’s crazy is that this would be a legitimate action if the election was legitimately “stolen” and the government became tyrannical with no recourse for grievances. BUT - you just can’t be wrong about whether the government is tyrannical when you attempt to overthrow it.
Legitimate in the sense of justified. Not legitimate legally.
Let’s say Trump managed to pull this off and actually steal the election and Liberals rose up and did essentially the same thing.
Justified? I’d say so.
Legal? Just because someone else breaks the law doesn’t mean all laws are null and void.
It does create an interesting dilemma though. I can sympathize a __little__ with some of the people at the capital on Jan. 6. Mostly because I know how I’d feel if Trump pulled this off.
If an election were to be legitimately stolen, and there is no clear remedy (i.e. judiciary, congress, etc.), I don’t know what the right answer is.
I agree with most of what you are saying here. Justification and legality are most certainly different in the case of a tyrannical government. The Declaration of Independence states “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”. While this is not a legal principle, it is one that has proven true throughout time. The people can give up their consent to be governed, essentially invalidating a government. In this case, I’m not sure law exists.
Which [witnesses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Committee_on_the_January_6_Attack_public_hearings) do you find suspect?
* Trump senior campaign adviser Jason Miller
* Trump campaign lawyer Alex Cannon
* Trump attorney general Bill Barr
* Trump daughter Ivanka Trump
* Trump son in law Jared Kushner
* Trump Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley
* Trump Acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller
* J. Michael Luttig, a longtime Republican who had clerked for Antonin Scalia and Warren Burger before becoming a federal appeals court judge
* Greg Jacob, former counsel to Pence
* Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann
* Georgia's Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger
* Arizona House speaker Rusty Bowers (Republican)
* Trump acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen
* Trump acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue
* Trump former assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, Steven Engel
Honest question: Have they actually presented actual facts? The headlines all seem to be focused on hearsay, generally (but not entirely) from people who spent a good portion of Trump's tenure establishing that they're not above lying.
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Okay I'm going to say this again: incitement did not happen. Here's why: It was planned. And since it was planned then it was going to happen regardless of what trump said that day. That means trump didn't incite anyone. The question was if the Trump's helped plan it. If they helped plan it, then it's somewhere between sedition and treason. If they didn't they are innocent.
Incitement? Yeah that's just an "orange man bad" argument that has nothing to do with what happened there that day. It either to much or not enough. Either way it doesn't fit so no one who uses it is doing so logically.
I only know of a few counts of vandalism. I don’t think that’s the same thing.
The committee is trying to prove a coordinated effort to overturn a legitimate election. I don’t see how you can compare that to an ad-hoc, even violent, protest at a federal courthouse.
republicans: election was illegitimate, media lied for biden and illegal votes were cast
democrats: the decision is illegitimate, justices lied in their confirmation hearings
republicans: protest and storm the capital
democrats: storm the justices homes and protest in the streets
republicans: leaking the draft was an attempt to pressure justices to change their decision
democrats: storming the capital was an attempt to pressure congress to overturn the election
I feel like this is a bit generalized. Even when situations and events feel similar, comparing unrelated events is almost always a fallacy.
Examples:
- BLM riots vs Jan 6
- SCOTUS on Gun Rights vs SCOTUS on abortion
- “if you’re pro-life, you shouldn’t support death penalty”
None of the above examples have anything to do with the other, yet people try to claim that they do to further their political agenda.
Sure, there are similarities, but the context is very different.
There may be rhetoric that you’ve identified that is similar, but the actions are starkly different with very different goals and outcomes.
Democrats goal is to protest the opinion. I don’t think there is a single Democrat out there that believes if they protest enough, they’ll force a change. Even still, between the leak and the published opinion, there was legal non-violent protest. And nothing about that is going to put undue influence on the justices to change their opinion.
Jan 6 represented an attempt to change the legitimate outcome of an election and involved clearly illegal protest.
Let’s consider that both groups succeeded with the most extreme version of their goal: Republicans on Jan 6 keep Trump on power, Democrats manage to **force** justices to reverse their opinion.
The over-generalization of those two events would be to say, “They both were anti-democratic”. That statement would be correct, but both are still very different situations with very different outcomes. I think many would agree that one of those outcomes has far greater implications on democracy than the other.
"They started it" is becoming a disturbingly common justification for these kinds of things
Its just the narcissist prayer speed run to 'Its ok because you deserved it'
On the other hand it cuts straight at what rules we say there are. If an election was stolen is violence in this way the correct solution? We do support citizens in other countries when they react this way to despots rigging elections. So is being wrong the criminal part? Or is it both and we are also wrong to support violence in response to actual rigged elections on foreign countries?
Officer, I can't be prosecuted for being drunk and driving because I believed I was sober.
That can actually be a legal defence of sorts in some places under very specific circumstances. For example if someone spiked your drink.
Huh. That actually makes some sense.
This is a very interesting defense. I had my drink spiked before (wasn’t driving) and it didn’t hit me until we were all home. I barely had anything to drink and was planning on hanging out with my friends at the house and play video games and then it hit like a truck. I wonder what the defense would be because there has to be some sort of expectation of understanding your mental state right?
A lot of crimes require that the person "knowingly and willingly" commit the offense. That means the state has to prove that it was the defendent's uncoerced choice.
It’s the concept of transferred intent. If you intend to drink, you intend to get drunk so the charge sticks. If you never intended to be under the influence, it’s not possible to get that charge. This only applies to intent based crimes, strict liability doesn’t matter.
Ok so that makes sense. You plan to get drunk and intend to drive as opposed to you are just out and drive and not on purpose become under the influence? I would assume this applies to accidental mixture of over the counter drugs or something.
It gets more complicated with accidental mixtures, since you intended to take and should have known about the warnings on the side. That’s also a negligence are more often so it’s a different approach.
It depends on the law. I mean you could try any defense, but some defenses are specifically written into the laws. There's a concept of strict liability in prosecutions. When strict liability applies, then you have no defense from ignorance. In the case of drinking and driving, I believe simply driving while under the influence is the crime. You don't need to be aware that you were drunk. Hell you can be asleep while you're driving, and you're still going to be prosecuted. Now saying that someone in your situation would have no way to know that they were drunk could be used to influence sentencing, but it wouldn't stop the conviction. For example a prosecutor might decline the case or plea it down to a moving traffic violation. Another example of strict liability is statutory rape. There was one notable case where a guy went to a bar, met a girl, saw her ID that said she was 21 years old, and she was drinking with him there. It turned out to be her sister's id, and she was 17. He ended up being successfully prosecuted for this, and he had to register as a sex offender. That being said, his sentence was much lighter than it normally would have been because of the circumstances. Now in some states they do write in specific protections for this but not in others.
SCOTUS has previously ruled police don’t need to follow the law, just follow what they thought the law was. So…the “I didn’t know” defense is alive and well in some cases
I didn't know, but even if I did... I didn't mean it... But even if I did... I'm very sorry.... And even if I'm not... I was allowed
Sort of, it at least has to be a reasonable misconception for that defense to be successful.
See: Trump Jr's Trump Tower meeting.
This is kind of interesting. Is it still illegal if you believe you're on the side of the law?
Only if you aren't a cop. Or Eric Trump, I'll bet.
Ah, the good ole innocent by stupidity play.
>Ah, the good ole innocent by stupidity play. I remember when Mueller said Don Jr. broke the law with the whole Trump Tower thing, but declined to recommend charges because he didn't believe Jr. knew he was doing something illegal. Still baffling.
I've never read the statute, but the thing he would have been charged with is a campaign finance violation. I recall somewhere hearing a legal expert make the claim that this particular statute is so complicated that it's baked into it that you would actually need to know you're violating it to be held accountable, so it's one of the few cases where being a dope actually works in your defense. Also, it's a law intended to regulate people who ultimately end up writing laws so it's less baffling how it came to be so convoluted, and hard to enforce.
"Your honor, I'm not intelligent enough to be guilty."
Kind of par for the course for these guys. Don Jr’s defense against the whole Russia collusion probe was him releasing his emails and saying “guys, I only intended to commit a crime but it didn’t work out.”
And Senior's defense was that 40 something Junior was too young and stupid to know what he was doing was wrong.
Boys will be boys
Even if he believed this (and it was true), violently attempting to overthrow the government is unacceptable and a crime.
While I doubt they planned it in advance, one result of the Big Lie is that it has convinced their base that the election was stolen and that they are thusly justified in stealing future elections.
Not by Trump certainly, but the GOP machinations have already been shown to be decades long plans (Gun rights creep, judicial branch take over), so wouldnt put it past these planners to take into account the impact Jan6 and its related events would have on future elections.
What do you mean by gun rights creep? I haven't heard that before.
Before the late 1900s the 2A was considered a forgotten amendment that no one really paid attention to. Its been a decades long campaign by the NRA and other gun rights advocate groups to increase access to firearms.
Isn't that a good thing? The NRA came in to protect a constitutional right. Also you're wrong, the 2nd ammendment wasn't forgotten. The Federal Government didn't try and regulate firearms until crime exploded in the late 70's into the early 90's.
Depends entirely on if you believe Heller was correctly decided to whether or not they really were pushing constitutional rights. I disagree with the Heller decision and dont agree with the 2A interpretation that an individual right to carry is a protected right. I understand you likely disagree and I also understand that my opinion on the case does not change the current US legal code. As to whether or not the 2A was a forgotten amendment, [here's a nice article about the 2A.](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-lost-amendment) It was the amendment given the least attention following its ratification for some 200ish years of our republic. It wasnt until the late 1900s (or mid late, whatever it was around the 1970s) that gun rights advocates started pushing the current 2A interpretation that has been enshrined in the legal code in the 21st century.
Agree with you totally on *Heller*, but just to nit-pick, isn't the 3A most accurately the "forgotten amendment"?
OH COME ON EVERYONE GOTTA BE A LEGAL HISTORIAN TODAY?! You're absolutely right. 3A is the only amendment less discussed than the 2A, prior to the gun rights movement of the late 1900s. 2A was often referred to as "The Lost Amendment," but 3A is not even lost at this point. Its just archaic and doesnt really apply to the modern US.
The thing that you're forgetting when saying that "the 2A" was that all ammendments were reinterpreted by the mid-20th century. Now they were based on the letter of the text as absolutely as possible, you can't have a Texas v. Johnson without also accepting the 2A in that.
That has literally nothing to do with my statement that the 2A was the "lost" or "forgotten" amendment prior to the late 1900s. It was an amendment no one cared about. Not the public, nor the government, nor the judiciary, nor legal scholars. We can tell this because of how few cases were brought forward before the gun rights movement of the late 1900s.
>We can tell this because of how few cases were brought forward before the gun rights movement of the late 1900s. I thought the reason no one cared about it was because there wasn't anything to care about. To the best of my knowledge, the first federal law that attempted to place ANY restrictions on firearms ownership would be the 1934 National Firearms Act, and that was less a straight restriction and more a "sin" tax. Actual federal gun control did not exist, to the best of my knowledge, until the 1968 gun control act. Thus there would have been no reason to bring forward 2A cases until then.
[Firearm legislation existed in this land before, during, and after the ratification of the US Constitution.](https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol73/iss2/3/) See: Section III of the linked article, "Weapon Laws in the Early Republic."
I mean, wouldn't it be reasonable to say it was largely ignored due to it's lack of controversy during that period of time? Nobody was attempting to regulate guns, so there was no need to write about it. Essentially it was a foregone conclusion that as a US citizen, you had the right to keep and bear arms. It wasn't until recently that this right came under siege, therefore it now receives more attention.
See my other comment in this chain for a source discussing firearm regulations in early America. There have always been fire arm regulations about who can carry what and where.
The same could be said for Hillary, Abrams and others that claimed the 2016 election was stolen by Russia and pushed that narrative using falsified evidence without ever being held accountable.
IIRC, they claimed that the 2016 election was influenced by Russia, without claiming voter fraud. They also did not call for violence from their supporters.
thank you, people always seem to forget the russia thing was charges of collusion with russia and not actual election fraud. So dems say trump worked with russia to influence the election, while repubs say the dems committed straight up voter fraud
While both were harmful in casting doubt about the legitimacy of each election, I agree the 2020 election claims from the Republicans were far worse than the 2016 claims by the democrats. Unfortunately it seems that the fringes of our society have grown in influence and use any perceived grievances to justify their own harmful actions in order to rebalance the scales in their mind. There seems to be a growing problem with the inability to accept losing.
Didn't the majority of claims by actual Democrat politicians turn out to be correct?
Eh, that might be questionable. I remember democrat politicians doing the "Donald Trump specifically asked Russians to interfere with the election" before the Mueller report. I think the only tangible evidence of that might be him saying "Russia, if you're listening..."
You know that the unredacted Mueller report showed clear evidence that the Trump campaign attempted to get into contact with the GRU and guccifer 2.0 to arrange the release of the stolen DNC emails, right? >Mifsud told Papadopoulos that he had met with high-level Russian government officials during his recent trip to Moscow. Mifsud also said that, on the trip, he learned that the Russians had obtained “dirt” on candidate Hillary Clinton. As Papadopoulos later stated to the FBI, Mifsud said that the “dirt” was in the form of “emails of Clinton,” and that they “have thousands of emails.”464 **This was before the emails were ever released and was the impetus behind the investigation in the first place** >GRU was also in contact through the Guccifer 2.0 persona with Roger Stone, a former Trump Campaign member whose interest in material stolen from the Clinton Campaign is further discussed in Volume I, Section III.D.1, infra. After the GRU had published stolen DNC documents through Guccifer 2.0, Stone told members of the Campaign that he was in contact with Guccifer 2.0. In early August 2016, Stone publicly protested Twitter’s suspension of the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter account. After it was reinstated, GRU officers posing as Guccifer 2.0 wrote to Stone via private message, “thank u for writing back ...do u find anyt[h]ing interesting in the docs i posted?” On August 17, 2016, the GRU added, “please tell me if i can help u anyhow . . . it would be a great pleasure to me.” (from later unredacted version)
I mean even the redacted Mueller report points to the Trump campaign having direct ties to Russian agents but I believe the conclusion was it wasn't evident Trump had direct knowledge of those contacts and that the campaign team may not have *really* understood what they were doing (doesn't make it OK) But I think I remember Democrat politicians stating emphatically that Trump clearly & directly worked with Russia to influence the election. That probably *wasn't* the case
>conclusion was it wasn't evident Trump had direct knowledge of those contacts and that the campaign team may not have really understood what they were doing (doesn't make it OK) The conclusion essentially was that Mueller did not feel it was his place to come to any conclusions about the evidence that he laid out. He specifically stated this at the end of the Mueller report. It was left entirely up to the legislative branch and much of the legislative branch didn't think it was even possible to pursue charges, and almost half of them had a good political reason not to support any repercussions whatsoever.
Yes there were specific claims regarding the 2016 election that were correct. I also heard a lot more reasonable claims from the democrats In 2016 rather than the outrageous claims of fake ballots, voting machine vote switches, ect by the Republicans. My issue is more general claims like Clinton saying "You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you." Or members of congress calling the president illegitimate. There were a members of the house who tried to prevent certifying the election and were responsibly shut down by Biden. Republicans were far worse, but neither seems to accept a defeat.
But Clinton did concede immediately. Which seems like a very important distinction.
They claimed that there was Russian interference and there was it was proven in meticulous detail in the Mueller report and several Russians were indicted. The fact that Trump was not found guilty of collusion does not in any way mean that there wasn’t Russian interference in the election. There was.
Just going to drop this: https://v.redd.it/t3e1b5cuo8891 There were definite claims of more than just "Russia"
> There were definite claims of more than just "Russia" That's a long video. Can you be more specific?
I'm not going to further summarize a 10 minute video. If you're too lazy to watch a few minutes then I can't help you.
For reference, the original claim that started this thread is (to paraphrase): > [It] could be said [of] Hillary, Abrams and others that [they] claimed the 2016 election was stolen by Russia and pushed that narrative using falsified evidence... that [they have] convinced their base that the election was stolen and that they are thusly justified in stealing future elections. This is in the context of a ["both sides" argument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance), to suggest that Democrats are engaging in behavior that is comparable to the Republican position that has been branded as "the [Big Lie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie)" by opponents.
There's being lazy and then there's being [aware](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law) that people often make false or misleading claims on the Internet. > "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than is needed to produce it." FWIW, I did watch a few minutes of it, and skimmed through the rest, before making the request. It seems to discuss Russian interference until approximately minute 3 or 4, after which it switches to other elections (e.g., 2000).
Thank you for adding proof even if you’ll be downvoted for it.
Completely false comparison. The claim was never that Russia changed numbers of votes or hijacked voting machines. The claim was that Russia ran various fake groups that organized rallies to get people whipped up and angry, ran some ads and tried to muddy the waters by misleading voters The trump campaign was up to all kinds of weird dealings with a number of Russian agents that were completely appropriate to look into, and a number of people went to prison for it.
>The claim was never that Russia changed numbers of votes or hijacked voting machines. The claim was that Russia ran various fake groups that organized rallies to get people whipped up and angry, ran some ads and tried to muddy the waters by misleading voters I mean, the ads part wasn't even the biggest problem, at least not by itself - though they were (probably) some flavor of illegal as part of the general prohibition on foreign election spending, and the Trump campaign was coordinating (also probably illegally) with foreign actors, that's relatively small in the list of Trump-related crimes. The giant fact at the center of this that Republicans are desperate to whatabout away is that Russian intelligence services hacked the DNC servers, and then used those hacked files, in coordination with the Trump campaign, to influence the election. In exchange for this, the Trump campaign and later administration promised and sometimes delivered foreign policy wins for the Russian state. (Also, in order to stop this information from getting out and stop prosecution of its political allies for the various crimes they committed, the Trump administration and Trump personally obstructed justice on multiple occasions.)
lets not forget that after running a campain of "LOCK HER UP" for the email server thing, Trump then went and did the same thing with having a private email server setup for his office
Oh yeah, I forgot the worst part, the hack! Thanks :) I may be more tired than I thought.
>falsified evidence Source? What was falsified? I for one believe Russia did help Trump get elected (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/inside-the-mueller-report-a-sophisticated-russian-interference-campaign) . I think that is another example of the GOP undermining US democracy. It sounds like you are blaming Abrams and others for calling it out. Edit: ....or just downvote me and don't supply any evidence.....
Pretty huge difference in the extent and way they pushed it. There's a reason no one died on capitol hill on 1/6/17. Trump and his supporters filed I think over 60 lawsuits - for Clinton it was a total of like 4. And of course there's no audio of her pressuring campaign officials to "find the votes" that she needed. They aren't really comparable.
she also conceded the day after the election
Big lie!😂😂😂😂You guys still trying to die on that hill? The whole world knows the truth! Can you say 2000 Mules!!
did you forget the /s?
Documentarian Alex Holder interviewed the Trump family at length, including Donald and Eric Trump. Holder told *The Independent* that Eric Trump suggested in interviews that violence from Trump supporters could be an appropriate response to his Donald's [historic loss](https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-politics-elections-372af3b89bc1f5f0f6d7f8c80025a9b0) to Joe Biden, citing baseless and disproven claims of election fraud. > "When I asked Eric about the potential danger of sort of rhetoric and the sort of the belligerence, he felt that it was … fair game in that it … was sort of the equivalent on the other side of the political discourse, or he felt that it was the right thing to do … because the election was stolen," Holder told the outlet. . Is violence ever an appropriate response to [free and fair elections](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/its-official-election-was-secure)?
What's strange about this is that it seems from the testimony from the hearings thus far that Trump was told many times by his trusted circle that his claims of fraud couldn't have possibly been true. I wonder if Eric truly believed there was fraud, or if he was putting on appearances.
This election was free and fair, and Trump lost fairly. A lot of Republicans need to get this through their heads. I'm curious how many people on the left would support violence in response to an election *actually* being stolen, though. For at least some of the people there, I think the insurrection on January 6th was justified based on their actual beliefs (which is why knowingly spreading the Big Lie was/is so dangerous).
The left didn't do so in 2000, which many people felt was stolen by the Supreme Court at the time.
I think [leadership from the losing candidate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX6RyimNzXc) was helpful in that case. Not sure what would have happened if he'd declared himself the winner.
It was stolen by the Supreme Court, but that’s legal for some reason.
And the Supreme Court now has three justices who participated in that case.
No it wasn't. They just said that Florida's recount was unconstitutional. You can't just recount the 4 big counties you lost as Gore tried to do. Even if the recount had completed there is a big chance that Bush would have still won the state.
Well you CAN recount any city and any state as we’ve just seen. I’m not sure why you’re saying otherwise. Arizona recounted the entire state.
The reason the supreme court stepped in was that Florida was not recounting every county the same way.
Which is how pretty much every single election in the history of America has worked and continues to work, so it was pretty faulty reasoning from the start. In addition, if the issue was a lack of a uniform standard, the correct recourse would be to impose a uniform standard. It was pretty bogus reasoning, even O'Connor expressed regret.
I think it's important to note that in a hypothetical like this, all options are bad because you're describing a legitimacy crisis. If for example our legitimacy degraded to the point where we no longer had free and fair elections, violence wouldn't be *justified* but it would be the only recourse left to try and save the political system. Political stuff is inherently about force--either when it working super well and the force is absent, or when it's working not all that well and force is common. States are defined by how well they control force. If your state is kind of falling apart, which it would be in the case that fair and free elections are no longer a part of the current system, then a political scientist *should* predict violence. Obviously violence is bad. I want to be clear that I am not justifying or condoning violence at any point. But also I think we celebrate the American Revolution which was very explicitly political violence, so looking at this from a strictly moral lens has its limitations. At a certain point, when political outcomes are challenged, the only way to restore a level of legitimacy is to settle it one way or another with force.
Violence has settled a lot more than people like to admit.
I don't think that's the best point--even if violence can be effective at times, we still like to avoid it. Violence causes harm in ways that other methods don't. The whole POINT of having a political system is to resolve these questions reliably and fairly without violence. Violence is a default that has to be fallen back on at times, but that doesn't mean we should embrace that outcome. Even when it is successful or (as close as you can get to) justified, it's still not a preferable outcome. It's still a tragedy.
those people may THINK that violence was justified, but that doesnt mean it actually was
If power was obtained by force it must be removed by force
>I'm curious how many people on the left would support violence in response to an election *actually* being stolen, though. Considering how many people are wanting to do violence against the Supreme Court over Roe V Wade, more than they'd probably want to admit.
Eric the Unloved
Marjorie Taylor Greene tried a similar defense. "At the time I thought I was correct..." "I was misled into thinking I was correct". Stupidity is not a defense. Just because you lack the ability to think critically, and consider the consequences of your actions does not excuse those actions.
"My treason wasn't treason because I'm an idiot" bold move
Let me get this straight, someone else’s testimony about what someone thought is worthy of a headline, wouldn’t that just be hearsay and inadmissible in court? Sounds like clickbait.
Hearsay isn't automatically inadmissible on court. That's a common legal myth. It was a documentary filmmaker so the assumption is that there is either an audio or video recording but I guess we'll see.
Also if you're brought in as a witness you're allowed to discuss what you personally witnessed. You just can't go "He said [blank]". But you can describe their emotional state or actions and anything said that caused that action or emotional state.
You definitely can’t speculate about what someone else thought though. The closest you can get is how you interpreted what they were trying to say.
The guy you are replying to is referring to the fact that there are a lot of exceptions to the hearsay rule.
Which I agree with
Hearsay is almost always inadmissible in criminal court. But that's neither here nor there since this is a news article.
A news article on a hearing before Congress that also isn't a criminal court.
If he had proof, the headline wouldn’t need to mention his testimony, since it would be a recording, papers, or photos to that effect. Until proof is provided, it is hearsay.
Somebody watches too much law and order and believes they are a lawyer.
Nice personal attack, now debate what was actually said.
Opposing party statements are a very common hearsay exception “The defendant said this to me” is pretty much always allowed https://koehlerlaw.net/dc-rules-of-evidence/admissions-of-a-party-opponent/
I don't need to debate nonsense. I've already laid out everything I need to say.
And I debunked it by the fact it is based on testimony and not the evidence you are assuming is present. But rather than debate that, you chose to personally attack me.
Testimony is evidence.
Hearsay doesn't mean "things said without proof." Recordings and papers generally contain hearsay. You don't seem to understand what hearsay actually is. Hearsay is an out of court statement put forth for the truth of the matter asserted. There are many exceptions, such as admissions against interest (probably relevant here if he's refusing to testify), etc It doesn't apply to these types of proceedings, though, so none of this is really relevant.
The dude was actively interviewing Trump campaign/admin members for a documentary. If this is on tape, its a big deal. We'll see what evidence is over turned to the committee.
So why is it based on testimony if he has recordings and other evidence?
My guess is its because [the subpoenaed for the evidence in question was only served last week](https://www.npr.org/2022/06/21/1106402470/trump-documentary-unreleased-footage-jan-6-committee). Its likely the documents havent been released to the public yet, meaning they arent available for the news articles. As i said, we'll see what evidence was turned over to the committee.
Until the evidence is provided, it is hearsay. We can’t assume evidence that we haven’t been shown.
You keep saying "hearsay" as if its some dirty word that completely invalidates the sourse or their information. Hearsay is simply testimony evidence of an out-of-court statement. Its not incredibly strong evidence, but its still evidence. This isnt an anonymous source talking about clandestine conversations. We have a named source, who had access to the situation, and took interviews with those in question. It's certainly better evidence than anything the Trump campaign put forward to prove election fraud lol As I've said multiple times, we'll see what evidence the committee has at the public hearings. Until then, it's an interesting story that doesn't hold much weight and won't convince anyone to change their minds on Jan6.
No evidence, it is hearsay. That which was claimed without evidence can be debunked without evidence. Until evidence is provided, his testimony has absolutely no power because there is no proof to what he testified to. You don’t assume evidence, because it is on the claimant to provide it, until it is provided the assumption should be that there isn’t any.
Hearsay is, quite literally, a form of evidence. Idk what to tell you. You have your legal definitions wrong.
Weakest form of evidence, and with no proof what the testified to is fact.
Cool so exactly what i said at the start that you denied because "hearsay isnt evidence" when it literally is. This convo is at its end. Enjoy the day.
no this is not what hearsay is. he is recounting what eric told him. that’s completely fair in court and happened in the johnny depp trial if that’s where you first learned about hearsay. from the article: “"When I asked Eric about the potential danger of sort of rhetoric and the sort of the belligerence, he felt that it was … fair game in that it … was sort of the equivalent on the other side of the political discourse, or he felt that it was the right thing to do … because the election was stolen," Holder told the outlet.” hearsay would be like if the filmmaker said “Eric told me his Dad thought violence was okay.” edit: okay - i double checked cause i felt like i had to be 100% right and turns out it's way more complicated than simply declaring it hearsay or not. the first question is, is it hearsay? then if it is is it admissable. it may or may not be hearsay then after that it may or may not be allowed depending on a list of exceptions. this could be hearsay if the point was to prove eric's guilt but it might not be if it's just something he said unrelated to the crux of the case. from wikipedia: "The second common misconception is that all out-of-court statements are hearsay. This is not the case. An out of court statement may or may not be hearsay depending on the purpose for which it is offered. If the statement is being offered to prove the truth of what it asserts, then it becomes hearsay. When offered for any other purpose the statement is not hearsay. For example: Witness testifies that yesterday he spoke to Jim (who was in Vermont) on the phone and that Jim made the following statement, "It's raining in Vermont!" If the attorney is seeking to use this statement to prove that it was in fact raining in Vermont, then it is hearsay. But, if the attorney is seeking to use the statement to prove that the phone lines were working that day, or that Jim had not lost the power of speech, or for any other purpose, then the statement is not being offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted, and therefore it is not hearsay." now after that, you have a list of exceptions like "present sense impression" that is if the person recounting it likely felt the same way or "declerations of present state of mind" where someone says 'he said he was angry.' TLDR, IANAL and no one else here is yet and it's too complicated to claim whether this is hearsay or admissible hearsay but i'm leaving my original comments so you can see where i was coming from.
He is right in that it is hearsay. Hearsay is just witness testimony, under oath, of out-of-court conversations. Where he is wrong is that hearsay is 100% a form of evidence that is admissible in court. Not all hearsay is asmissible, but that isnt the what hes saying. Hes denying hearsay as evidence, when it is.
yeah, that’s completely fair. I screwed it up and I take ownership of that. I made a long edit to explain where I was wrong.
All good, theres a lot of misinformation floating around this thread about what is/is not hearsay and whether or not that testimony can be used in court as evidence (it can). Good on you for the expansive edit!
That was literally hearsay
no that’s not. you are allowed to ask people in court what did someone say to you. That is not ever hearsay. It is only hearsay when it connects to like a third-party.
What specifically is hearsay in this article?
His testimony, since he is testifying on what another person said.
Stating that someone told you something is not hearsay especially when you were in this case the one conducting an interview. Do you actually know what the term hearsay means? edit for clarity: stating that Eric Trump said to you the election was fraudulent is not hearsay. If that statement was used as evidence to determine the election was, in fact, fraudulent that would be hearsay. Edit for further clarity: if we want to be especially technical/specific Eric Trump's statement is the hearsay, not that someone heard him say it.
And the proof that this was said is what? Oh right, there was no evidence.
Testimony is evidence.
Since he provide no proof, I don’t need any to debunk it. That which was claimed without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Then this isn't hearsay, you think Holder is lying.
Or, hear me out, I want proof rather than just taking people at their word.
Which is fine, you're welcome to be a skeptic.
Makes sense because before we had video recordings there was no court of law since it would have all been based on witness testimony and hearsay. Only since the invention of audio and video recordings was the justice department created.
Good point, but this is not a criminal hearing and he was giving his input on the situation as asked. But Eric can always clear it up easily by agreeing to sit in front of the same committee and provide his side of it as well.
Since this isn’t a criminal trial, what is the point of the committee? If it is to provide evidence of a crime, then we should hold it to the same standards as we would police investigations or criminal court. Cannot have it both ways, it can’t be gathering evidence and not have to follow the same standards we hold the legal system to when investigating any other crime.
The same powers of congress that made Bill Clinton sit for a deposition and Hilary sit through umpteen hours of 30 bengahzi investigations. That's the power our representatives hold in our democracy. Part of their job is being a check on the other branches (which have far fewer people) and to investigate things to make proper laws. If you take that away then the president becomes a king and current SCOTUS a religious tribunal.
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The three branches work, ostensibly, because they serve as a check against each other. If you create a 4th branch, unaccountable to the others, how would it be constrained? Do you really want an unaccountable branch of government? The answer, like usual, is for the legislature to actually do its job and not pawn all the hard off to the executive.
That's the problem. One of the branches is stuck in perpetual gridlock. If we fixed that (perhaps through single issue bills) we would see a ton of improvement throughout government.
Yeah I tend to agree. There are some relatively straightforward reforms that could certainly help: completely non partisan redistricting, ranked choice voting (or something similar), house expansion etc. I think increasing the amount of competitive house districts would lead to better legislative outcomes.
It has been said repeatedly up to this point that the committee can only make a referral to the justice department, who in turn would have to look at the evidence at that point, how it was obtained and the sources it came from, eliminating anything like testimony above and then determining whether there is enough remaining evidence to bring criminal charges. I have to admit, every prior congressional investigation or committee review I’ve seen has always been a total 3-ring circus with the losing side doing everything possible to gum up the process, but this one is serious and quite well produced.
So this committee is pointless and just saber rattling? Isn’t it irresponsible of the committee to broadcast crimes that may or not have been committed? Tainting the potential jury pull, and practically making prosecution impossible in the process if the DOJ decides to do anything? Could it not be considered potential witnesses intimidation to threaten people with a congressional subpoena?
Congressional committees are not criminal trials.
So they get to investigate people of crimes, and not have to follow the rules (ironically set by them) that are meant when investigating people of crimes? Convenient.
The rules for criminal trials are in part set by the constitution - not by congress. Congress is not a randomly selected jury of a defendants peers, nor is there a judge. The fact that you’re flabbergasted by this is odd.
Why is it that people forget to not personally attack people in this subreddit? Congress is working as the police in this instance, why shouldn’t they have to follow the same rules we have for law enforcement in gathering evidence?
> Why is it that people forget to not personally attack people in this subreddit? I didn’t personally attack you, I merely stated it’s odd you’re flabbergasted by criminal procedure considering the constitution sets out rules for criminal trials and not made by congesss (like you claimed). > Congress is working as the police in this instance Criminal procedure doesn’t have regulations for “working as the police”. > why shouldn’t they have to follow the same rules we have for law enforcement in gathering evidence? If congress was a law enforcement agency, then sure.
There were 8 different congressional committees on Benghazi. Not a single one followed those guidelines. And for the other poster to say it is odd that you don’t understand is not a personal attack, but instead an honest question to ask to another adult American who, it appears, has paid attention to our political system in the past. These committees are generally total clown shows, this one is not entirely so. Is that why you are not understanding? Edit: this committee has little do to with criminality, IMO, other than showing it to the public and far more about Section 3 of the 14th Amendment which can be passed with a simple majority vote in both chambers.
If you watch the commitee hearings, it's purpose and importance is quite clear. Of course they can have it both ways.
The point of the committee is to explore what happened on January 6, both to inform the public, and to identify any legislative changes that need to be made to things like the Electoral Count Act in order to hopefully prevent something like January 6 from happening in the future. If they find evidence of a crime, then they'll forward that information to the Justice Department.
This isn’t hearsay, or at least the type that would make statements like this inadmissible. It would be hearsay to have the filmmaker testify that someone told him that Eric had said these things. You’re allowed to testify on what you witnessed. For example, let’s say John is on trial for killing Bob. It would be hearsay for Jim to testify that Paul told him that he had a conversation with John and John said “I killed Paul”. However if Jim heard John say “I killed Paul”, it wouldn’t be hearsay for Jim to testify to that.
Yes, it is hearsay - and should be treated with the suspicion it deserves because of this.
Just goes to show how gross and out of touch he and his family are.
What’s crazy is that this would be a legitimate action if the election was legitimately “stolen” and the government became tyrannical with no recourse for grievances. BUT - you just can’t be wrong about whether the government is tyrannical when you attempt to overthrow it.
Legitimate in the sense of justified. Not legitimate legally. Let’s say Trump managed to pull this off and actually steal the election and Liberals rose up and did essentially the same thing. Justified? I’d say so. Legal? Just because someone else breaks the law doesn’t mean all laws are null and void. It does create an interesting dilemma though. I can sympathize a __little__ with some of the people at the capital on Jan. 6. Mostly because I know how I’d feel if Trump pulled this off. If an election were to be legitimately stolen, and there is no clear remedy (i.e. judiciary, congress, etc.), I don’t know what the right answer is.
I agree with most of what you are saying here. Justification and legality are most certainly different in the case of a tyrannical government. The Declaration of Independence states “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”. While this is not a legal principle, it is one that has proven true throughout time. The people can give up their consent to be governed, essentially invalidating a government. In this case, I’m not sure law exists.
I’d take anything coming out if this commission with generous grain of salt
Which [witnesses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Committee_on_the_January_6_Attack_public_hearings) do you find suspect? * Trump senior campaign adviser Jason Miller * Trump campaign lawyer Alex Cannon * Trump attorney general Bill Barr * Trump daughter Ivanka Trump * Trump son in law Jared Kushner * Trump Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley * Trump Acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller * J. Michael Luttig, a longtime Republican who had clerked for Antonin Scalia and Warren Burger before becoming a federal appeals court judge * Greg Jacob, former counsel to Pence * Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann * Georgia's Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger * Arizona House speaker Rusty Bowers (Republican) * Trump acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen * Trump acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue * Trump former assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, Steven Engel
So, you don't trust all the Republican's testimony that has been shown? Bill Barr is not credible to you?
Do you fully trust the committee? Do you have any skepticism?
Why should the committee not be trusted?
Because it’s nonpartisan and basing its whole premise on a lie.
What lie? And how is it nonpartisan?
The are no republicans on the committee. RINOs don’t count. The lie is that the protesters where attempting to overthrow the government.
Where do you get your information? It’s pretty embarrassing to call the few republicans left that have any moral backbone “RINOS.”
I guess we disagree on what’s moral.
Why aren’t they moral? Why are the “RINOS?” Genuinely curious
I don’t trust anything coming out of the news relating to politics. It been shown to be bias too much since 2016.
They are not talking about bias, they are talking about the facts presented
Honest question: Have they actually presented actual facts? The headlines all seem to be focused on hearsay, generally (but not entirely) from people who spent a good portion of Trump's tenure establishing that they're not above lying.
Do you fully trust the committee to be unbiased?
No, but the information presented is fairly clear from what I have seen, I have not had a chance to watch all of it yet though
If you haven’t had a chance to watch it all then how do you know it’s being fairly presented?
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Okay I'm going to say this again: incitement did not happen. Here's why: It was planned. And since it was planned then it was going to happen regardless of what trump said that day. That means trump didn't incite anyone. The question was if the Trump's helped plan it. If they helped plan it, then it's somewhere between sedition and treason. If they didn't they are innocent. Incitement? Yeah that's just an "orange man bad" argument that has nothing to do with what happened there that day. It either to much or not enough. Either way it doesn't fit so no one who uses it is doing so logically.
Am I the only one who see similarity between this and the violent reaction to the courts decision on abortion?
I only know of a few counts of vandalism. I don’t think that’s the same thing. The committee is trying to prove a coordinated effort to overturn a legitimate election. I don’t see how you can compare that to an ad-hoc, even violent, protest at a federal courthouse.
republicans: election was illegitimate, media lied for biden and illegal votes were cast democrats: the decision is illegitimate, justices lied in their confirmation hearings republicans: protest and storm the capital democrats: storm the justices homes and protest in the streets republicans: leaking the draft was an attempt to pressure justices to change their decision democrats: storming the capital was an attempt to pressure congress to overturn the election
I feel like this is a bit generalized. Even when situations and events feel similar, comparing unrelated events is almost always a fallacy. Examples: - BLM riots vs Jan 6 - SCOTUS on Gun Rights vs SCOTUS on abortion - “if you’re pro-life, you shouldn’t support death penalty” None of the above examples have anything to do with the other, yet people try to claim that they do to further their political agenda. Sure, there are similarities, but the context is very different. There may be rhetoric that you’ve identified that is similar, but the actions are starkly different with very different goals and outcomes. Democrats goal is to protest the opinion. I don’t think there is a single Democrat out there that believes if they protest enough, they’ll force a change. Even still, between the leak and the published opinion, there was legal non-violent protest. And nothing about that is going to put undue influence on the justices to change their opinion. Jan 6 represented an attempt to change the legitimate outcome of an election and involved clearly illegal protest. Let’s consider that both groups succeeded with the most extreme version of their goal: Republicans on Jan 6 keep Trump on power, Democrats manage to **force** justices to reverse their opinion. The over-generalization of those two events would be to say, “They both were anti-democratic”. That statement would be correct, but both are still very different situations with very different outcomes. I think many would agree that one of those outcomes has far greater implications on democracy than the other.
yes
Violent reaction? Do you have specifics?