It wasn’t a coup- it was an alternate election result.
A Capital Crime?
Nice.
Depends why it’s impossible. If a crime is “legally impossible,” meaning the circumstances are such that the thing being attempted wouldn’t even be a crime if it did happen, that is a defense.
If it’s “factually impossible,” meaning that the circumstances are such that the thing can’t be accomplished, but it would be a crime that was possible to commit if the circumstances were as the person believed them to be, then that’s almost always still a crime.
In your 747 example, if you think you can steal a plane with a magnet and try to conspire with your neighbor about it, then you are actually trying to steal a plane, and stealing a plane is a real crime (so attempting to do it is also a crime). If you thought it was illegal to take a picture of a 747, and you tried to get your neighbor to do that, no crime, even though you think it is.
So if Trump thought some kind of election crime was possible via Brooks, then it could still be a crime even given that Brooks could never accomplish it, as long as that thing would be a crime if Brooks could.
I don’t understand all the talk of it being “impossible”. Suppose some far out militia was discovered to be plotting some sort of coup. Would anyone say it’s not a crime because it was “impossible” for them to pull it off?
I think Mo Brooks had a much better chance of pulling it off than some militia guys would. Obviously he didn’t have any legal authority to do what he was being asked to do, but it’s far from uncommon for government members to announce - and pull off - coups, overturn constitutions, dissolve parliaments, declare martial law etc., even where their government positions don’t technically give them that right. It all depends on who the police and army support (which, in turn, depends a lot on how much public support there is).
As I suggested above, if it was just going to be Mo Brooks himself, then the chance of success was virtually zero. But I assume if Trump was reaching out to Brooks, then he would have been reaching out to others that he similarly perceived as close allies. That (had anyone gone along with it) raises the likelihood to some number slightly above “virtually zero”. Not all that much higher, but again, a lot higher than some militia guys rambling in their hideout about taking out the government, and I think the latter would be taken seriously and prosecuted.
Yes, someone would say that.
One awful truth that this episode illuminates - a sure fire way to get past Trump is for Republican candidates to win without his endorsement. Else, if those without his endorsement continue to lose, then he continues to be a factor. So, do I then wish for un-endorsed GOP candidates to win? Man, this is a devil’s bargain.
His life strategy appears to be to just tell his underlings to make something happen, and then it just… happens. He has no idea how to get it done, because he’s delegated that problem to someone else. That seems to be what he’s done his entire life- just throw money at it, and it magically gets done. If it doesn’t, fire the person who failed.
Trump’s motto is “All the credit, none of the responsibility.”
Plotting to overthrow the government isn’t necessarily illegal. The Democrats did it (with good reason) when they impeached Trump, and members of his cabinet may also have done it when they discussed invoking the 25th amendment Given that Trump was talking to a Senator rather than the head of the proud boys suggests to me that the “plan” more likely involved “legal” maneuvering rather than illegally seizing power.
To use your 747 example, if the plan was that I would stay on the plane after the pilot left at which point it became abandoned property according to admiralty law, which I could claim. I haven’t proposed anything illegal, just stupid.
He’d like the costume, too.
Minor correction FWIW: people keep referring to Brooks as a senator. He is a congressman, running in a primary for a senate nomination (seat currently held by Richard Shelby).
Mo Brooks is not a senator. He’s a congressman running for senate.
ETA: NINJA
Yeah I was wondering about that. I thought he was a representative but reading this thread I just assumed that I had gotten it wrong.
Wait, what? Impeaching and trying to remove a president is not “plotting to overthrow the government.” On the contrary, it’s acting within the constitution to remove one person who’s a threat to the government.
Now, attempting to overlook, overturn and act in complete defiance of the results of an election? That’s plotting to overthrow the government – and it’s illegal as hell.
But it depends on how the election is overturned.
If the plan is,
- Republicans take Congress and the Senate in 2022,
- Trump is made speaker of the house and impeaches the president and vice presdient
- the Senate eliminates the filibuster so that only 50 votes are needed in the senate to remove them from office. (yes I know it doesn’t work this way)
- Trump returns to the White house.
That would be a plan that misunderstands how the law works and so would be doomed to fail, but wouldn’t be illegal in the sense of criminal prosecution for those who tried to implement it.
That’s the same issue: impeachment isn’t overthrowing or overturning an election. What Brooks alleges is that he was told to “rescind” the election and “remove” Biden as president and then “immediately put” Trump back in the White House.
That’s just a description of a coup.
OK new non-illegal plan to rescind the election and immediately put Trump back in the white house.
- late at night 5 Republican senators and 5 Republican representatives go into the Congress after everyone else is asleep
- They declare that the election was fraudulent and that Trump really won.
- the motion passes unanimously in both houses
- now Trump is president.
Again it’s, stupid, with no possibility of success. But a complete misunderstanding of how the law works is not prosecutable. My guess is that whatever Trump was planning was more likely along one of these lines rather than an out and out coup. If Tump had been talking to generals rather than representatives, then I’d feel differently.
One more thing to add, just because in my personal opinion its more likely that what Trump was trying to get Mo Brooks to do was more likely to be ill-informed rather than criminally illegal, doesn’t mean that I don’t think it should be investigated. If I were the Jan 6th investigating committee I’d be writing up a subpoena for Mo Brooks post haste.
Somebody help de-confuse me please.
In reading about this, I’ve gotten confused about the chronology of things. Trump and Mo seem to have thrown each other under various busses.
Who back-stabbed whom first? Who was reacting to who? Did Chairman Mo say publicly that Trump asked him to “rescind” the election first, followed by Trump dropping him? Or was it the opposite order?
Whatever happened first, why did that happen?
The first thing that happened was that news broke that Mo Brooks was way behind in the polls:
Second (as that six-days-ago story relates), Trump publicly “mulled” pulling his endorsement from Brooks.
Third, apparently, came Brooks’ disclosure of Trump’s ‘declare me President’ request of Brooks, and fourth came Trump’s posting of ‘Brooks is a big loser and I hate him’ announcement.