A Very Simple Question
If Trump incited a riot on January 6th, why wasn’t this obvious to his Secret Service detail? Why didn’t they contact the Capitol Police along with Pence’s security detail? Are we to believe they are so callous, or incompetent, that they witnessed an incitement to violence and didn’t bother to make a phone call?
Obviously, it was not obvious to them: Anyone who thinks the remarks were obvious incitement are looking at the situation with the benefit of hindsight. But to be incitement, it had to clearly be incitement at the time it was being said. It can’t just look like it based on what happened later.
I was there that day. Nothing Trump said felt like incitement at the time. And Democratic politicians, whose constituencies have been known to engage in violent riots and attempt a political assassination every now and then, ought to be worried about setting a legal precedent that eventually ensnares them too.