@Dax777, this is just for you. I don’t know quite why I’m bothering with this particularly boring bit of jurisprudence, perhaps I am hoping that you break the habit of a lifetime and accept you were wrong in your insistence that J6 was not an insurrection. My response is not particularly polished but I can’t be bothered to add lustre.
Your statement was ‘J6 was NOT an insurrection. It was a protest.’
INSURRECTION
An insurrection is an act or series of acts committed by an ORGANISED group with the PURPOSE of usurping the legitimate government or preventing it from taking office. An insurrection has various CHARACTERISTICS which are: the acts are illegal or unconstitutional, they are usually extra parliamentary, and they always include violence.
J6
Was there an organised group?
Two days after Biden won the 2020 election, lawyers acting for Trump hired a series of rooms at the Willard hotel in Washington to provide a place in which to plan the insurrection. Several high ranking Trump advisors attended meetings including Guiliani and John Eastman. Leaders of several militia such as the Proud Boys also attended meetings.
At the same time various meetings took place in several states and the plan to subvert the Electoral College by creating false certification documents was hatched.
The purpose of these documents was to replace the EC’s vote for Biden. with a vote declaring Trump the winner.
In the run up to J6 Trump attempted to persuade VP PENCE that he had the power to replace the genuine EC votes or to refer the vote
back to the states. So J6 was put together by an organised group.
METHODS.
The methods used included forgery, false declarations by the replacement EC voters, and the unconstitutional attempt to refer the vote back to the states.
Pence consulted the most prominent conservative Jurist, Judge Michael Luttig who advised that the VP had no power under the constitution to do anything other than tot up the EC Certificates and declare the result. So the methods used were illegal and unconstitutional.
J6 Violence.
The violence on J6 was not extempore but carefully planned at the Willard. The various militia groups were on the Ellipse specifically for that purpose as was Trump. He enjoined them to “Fight like hell or you won’t have a country” and to “Stop the Steal”. That is, their purpose was to prevent the legitimate government from taking office and replace it with Republican usurpers.
Failure.
Why did the insurrection fail?
First, the organisation of the false certificates was erratic. One state group forged the documents and then posted them in the US Mail.
The false certificates never reached the hands of the VP.
Second, Pence was persuaded by Luttig that he did not have the power to modify the EC vote in any way and he refused to do so.
Conclusion.
It is clear that this was an organised attempt to usurp to legitimate government using illegal, unconstitutional acts and violence. A classic insurrection.
Was it a protest?
A protest does not have the objective of usurping the government but rather attempts to persuade the gov to change policy. It is perfectly acceptable as a democratic action, though any associated violence is not.
It is clear that those who took part in J6 were not attempting to change any government policy. So it was not a protest.
So, I contend that J6 was an insurrection and that Dax is flat wrong.
Over to you
@Dax777 .
