From a purely legal standpoint, isn't this case for impeachment fairly flimsy? In my opinion, Trump's rhetoric over the past few months has been ill advised, unhelpful, misguided, and often awful. However, legally tying Trump's speech at the Capitol to the actual storming of the capital seems weak at best. Look at the ending of his speech, pasted below. The article of impeachment highlights the "fight like hell" portion, but politicians use that kind of language all the time. If Nancy Pelosi says we are going to fight like hell to pass a bill, the bill doesn't pass, and then some looney kills a congressperson, that is not Pelosi's fault. Applying a politician's language as the cause of actions by others is a fairly dangerous precedent.
End of Speech
"Our brightest days are before us, our greatest achievements still wait. I think one of our great achievements will be election security because nobody until I came along, had any idea how corrupt our elections were. And again, most people would stand there at 9:00 in the evening and say, “I want to thank you very much,” and they go off to some other life, but I said, “Something’s wrong here. Something’s really wrong. Can’t have happened.” And we fight. We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.
Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun. My fellow Americans for our movement, for our children and for our beloved country and I say this, despite all that’s happened, the best is yet to come.
So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to try and give… The Democrats are hopeless. They’re never voting for anything, not even one vote. But we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.
Quotes from the Speech that would contradict incitement - These quotes don't sound like someone trying to incite a riot, and don't sound like someone wanting the Capitol stormed. He even says at one point that Republicans who don't join the cause should be primaried. That is a far cry from storm the Capitol, kill people, zip ties, etc.
"You hurt our monuments, you hurt our heroes, you go to jail for 10 years and everything stopped. Did you notice that? It stopped. It all stopped."
"We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong."
"I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."
"So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I want to thank you all. God bless you and God bless America. Thank you all for being here, this is incredible. Thank you very much. Thank you."
"Unbelievable, what we have to go through, what we have to go through and you have to get your people to fight. If they don’t fight, we have to primary the hell out of the ones that don’t fight. You primary them."
End of Speech
"Our brightest days are before us, our greatest achievements still wait. I think one of our great achievements will be election security because nobody until I came along, had any idea how corrupt our elections were. And again, most people would stand there at 9:00 in the evening and say, “I want to thank you very much,” and they go off to some other life, but I said, “Something’s wrong here. Something’s really wrong. Can’t have happened.” And we fight. We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.
Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun. My fellow Americans for our movement, for our children and for our beloved country and I say this, despite all that’s happened, the best is yet to come.
So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to try and give… The Democrats are hopeless. They’re never voting for anything, not even one vote. But we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.
Quotes from the Speech that would contradict incitement - These quotes don't sound like someone trying to incite a riot, and don't sound like someone wanting the Capitol stormed. He even says at one point that Republicans who don't join the cause should be primaried. That is a far cry from storm the Capitol, kill people, zip ties, etc.
"You hurt our monuments, you hurt our heroes, you go to jail for 10 years and everything stopped. Did you notice that? It stopped. It all stopped."
"We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong."
"I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."
"So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I want to thank you all. God bless you and God bless America. Thank you all for being here, this is incredible. Thank you very much. Thank you."
"Unbelievable, what we have to go through, what we have to go through and you have to get your people to fight. If they don’t fight, we have to primary the hell out of the ones that don’t fight. You primary them."
