For the sake of argument, let’s postulate that Trump’s claims of the election being stolen are proven correct, and without the fraud Trump would have won. (please no posts about how unlikely that is; that’s beside the point)
Wouldn’t the actions he is accused of in the Georgia indictments still be against the law? Submitting fraudulent certificates of ascertainment would still be illegal, right?
No, it wouldn’t.
The common comparison is to a bank error where the bank took some of your money. There are remedies to correct the error. Robbing the bank isn’t one of them.
Knowingly committing a crime is a crime, regardless of whether you feel that you’re just “righting a wrong” or not.
And, likewise, not knowing that something is a crime doesn’t protect you from punishment for that crime (unless by jury nullification).
If a corrupt towing company takes your car from your driveway and holds it in their lot until you pay a fee, do you have the legal right to climb over their fence at midnight, rev up your car, and blast out through their gate to freedom?
Funny story. I actually did that once. (except the blasting the fence part). (and the “corrupt towing company” part). I did steal back my car. No one every tracked me down and prosecuted me.
/hijack
Technically, it would be illegal I suppose.
However, and it pains me to say this, if his claims were proven true, if he actually won the election, and a cabal of criminals altered the results of the election… who cares if what he did was illegal?
It would be like giving someone a ticket for double parking when he stopped to save a bunch of nuns from a burning building.
I expect to see this argument gain strength from the MAGAt fringe, if it hasn’t already.
Stealing the 2020 election was the greatest crime in US history – maybe in all human history! Who cares if Trump had to break a few rules to right that wrong? What’s the point of even having laws if criminals can steal a whole country?
Yes.
But the case would lack jury appeal, and I doubt he would have been indicted.
This is an interesting thought. I’m trying to be completely objective, casting aside my Trump contempt for a moment, and asking myself how I’d react if a “good guy” were in the hypothetical position, where he knew fraud occurred and no one was doing anything about it. What if that “good guy” decided, “Screw this! I am not letting this happen!”?
I realize the Trump example has a lot of sleazy details. But just as a general matter, if someone who decided the rule of law is not a suicide pact, so to speak, and took matters in his own hands in the face of a non-responsive bureaucracy, I might well react with “Who cares if laws were broken!” I realize ignoring the rule of law is a legitimate slippery slope, but I also believe that sometimes obeying the law may not be the ethical governing principle. Rarely.
I have to think on this one. An interesting OP and an interesting response. (And just to emphasize, there is zero chance that Trump and his Keystone Cops were operating on the side of the angels.)
If laws were broken to get the ‘evidence’ of fraud in the light - I would welcome it - I would then expect appropriate judicial decisions around what, if any, punishment came to be for the law breaker.
In this case - not only did they have ample opportunities , and attempts, to ‘prove’ the fraud - none of it worked (as there was none) - it wasn’t that they were blocked - its that they had nothing. At that point, they went and attempted to overturn the results in shady/backroom/illegal manners “damned the law”. At which point I have no reason to expect something different ‘this time’.
That’s the ticket! What Trump and his allies did was civil disobedience! They’re only following the lead of Rosa Parks, after all!
Now, now, a full read of my post could not possibly lead you to conclude this was my point. It’s quite clear what went on, but being a good Doper, I did not fight the hypothetical.
Oops – my clip did make it look like that was your point. Apologies!
My point, of course, is that people who believe The Big Lie could (and likely will, if they haven’t already) actually posit that Trump’s lawbreaking to reverse the stolen election is no different than Parks’ refusal to ride in the back of the bus.
No worries! I get you now…
Hell, if you genuinely believe the Big Lie, Jan 6th was justified. This is why I don’t think lots of Republicans really believe it, they’re WAY too calm about it.
Sure, but they had all of the power of the “Deep State” working against them. That’s the weird part-if the world really was as the MAGAT’s believe, it would be horrific.
There’s some truth to what you’re saying, but that is one massive “if”. That’s like saying, “If lizard people from Dimension Zero had infiltrated my local Wal Mart, who cares if I blow it up with fertilizer bombs at 3 AM?” A ridiculous premise can make any number of ridiculous actions seem justified.
The fact a very large percentage of Hollywood entertainment is predicated on exactly this "corruption in high places justifies vigilantism by the so-called ‘good guys’ " is probably not a coincidence.
Keep repeating that defective meme and sooner or later your society believes it.
I’d like to point out that, prior to the election, Trump prevented the FEC from having a quorum sufficient to police the election, blocked the FBI from investigating any election crimes by the presidential candidates, and ignored and did nothing to implement the recommendations of the Senate Intelligence Committee given in their election security report. I’ll also note that he pardoned Democrats who had been convicted, previously, for election crimes, officially opposes the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and has bragged about bribing politicians before.
By all accounts, the guy did everything that he could to ensure that the election could be stolen, seems to encourage election crimes, and all the while crying - in advance - that someone would steal it from him.
It’s like if he built a big pile of kindling in his own yard, douses it in gasoline, bails out his old friends from jail who were arrested for arson, drives around town yelling that, “Someone’s going to set that pile in my yard on fire!” And, the next morning - after it exploded into flame in the middle of the night - he runs out with his eyebrows singed off and says that it was his neighbor that done it.
Not to mention that he tried to steal the election himself, and is facing both state and federal charges for doing so.