Insurrection Was the Furthest Thing from Trump’s Mind

Dick Young

Originally posted on January 15, 2021.

At The American Spectator, Dov Fischer details the evidence that there was no incitement of insurrection by the president. He writes (abridged):

I have been an attorney for more than 20 years, litigated on the front lines in the biggest of cases, served as a former Chief Articles Editor of one of America’s most respected law reviews, been an adjunct law professor for 16 years, and more.

My politics is my subjective politics, but the law is the objective law. Under the law — criminal law — there is a concept known as men’s rea. That Latin term derives from the phrase: “actus reus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea” (“The act is not culpable unless the mind is guilty”). There is no crime of incitement nor any crime at all here if the acting party had no intention to incite a crowd to act unlawfully.

I have played and watched — several times — the full actual speech that Trump delivered on January 6.

Any fair person who listens to the embedded link especially for one minute between 18:00 and 19:00 — and particularly to the words at 18:47–18:56 — cannot but recognize that President Trump, lacking even a bare modicum of training or hands-on experience in the dynamics of street protest, an area completely outside his many, many fields of remarkable expertise, never intended for an unlawful assemblage nor for violence of any kind to take place.

An insurrection or coup was the furthest thing from his mind.

For him it was one more motivating speech, one more chance to assure his most devoted followers that, as long as they stand with him, he will not back down in his efforts to gain a lawful, legal investigation into the veracity of the reported November 3 presidential election results.

Be fair and listen objectively to the speech, especially at the one-minute section that plays at 18:00–19:00 at this link.

Read the transcript.

Rabbi Dov Fischer, Esq., a high-stakes litigation attorney of more than twenty-five years and an adjunct professor of law of more than fifteen years, is rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California. His legal career has included serving as Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review, clerking for the Hon. Danny J. Boggs in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and then litigating at three of America’s most prominent law firms: JonesDay, Akin Gump, and Baker & Hostetler. In his rabbinical career, Rabbi Fischer has served several terms on the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America, is Senior Rabbinic Fellow at the Coalition for Jewish Values, has been Vice President of Zionist Organization of America, and has served on regional boards of the American Jewish Committee, B’nai Brith Hillel, and several others. His writings on contemporary political issues have appeared over the years in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Jerusalem Post, National Review, American Greatness, The Weekly Standard, and in Jewish media in American and in Israel. A winner of an American Jurisprudence Award in Professional Legal Ethics, Rabbi Fischer also is the author of two books, including General Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine, which covered the Israeli General’s 1980s landmark libel suit.