Must Indict: Trump Lied, Seven Died
IT’S CUT AND DRIED. Trump lied and seven people lost their lives because of his lies. He claimed that there was “massive election fraud”. He made this claim without any evidence and the proof of that is that he and his team of lawyers lost 61 attempts to convince trial judges that there had been the kind of fraud he was alleging.
As the records show, Trump and his team were rebuffed for lack of evidence, but still he and his malicious enablers kept pushing the “Big Lie”.
This was after Trump’s own attorney general, Bill Barr, had told him in no uncertain terms that there was no evidence of massive voter fraud. Despite receiving this information from the very head of the justice department, Trump continued with his public declarations that there was widespread voter fraud. He did this knowing full well that it was a lie.
That he knowingly continued with this lie — that the election had been stolen — proves an intent: the intent to deceive the American people.
He then, to paraphrase the courageous Liz Cheney, called his most ardent supporters to Washington for a rally on January 6, 2021, “lit the flame” that sent them in a frenzy to the Capitol building where they breached the police line, where they beat and thrashed countless police officers, leaving many in a bloody heap, then stormed their way into the building causing widespread destruction to the very citadel of democracy.
All in the name of a lie.
All in the name of keeping Donald J. Trump in power.
The ultimate effort was made on that day, which shall indeed live on in infamy, to stop congress from performing its constitutional duty, which was to certify the electoral count and declare Joe Biden the duly elected President of the United States.
Quite unbelievably, as this mob stormed its way through the hallowed halls of the Capitol, more than a few sought out the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, in an effort to “punish” her for her opposition to Trump’s criminality on multiple occasions, two of which got the disgraced president impeached by the House of Representatives. These mob members might well have murdered the woman had they found her.
The same goes for the Vice-President of the United States at that time, Mike Pence. Chanting, “Hang Mike Pence”, this mob had, quite unbelievably, actually erected a gallows in front of the Capitol for this very purpose!
A purpose that proves premeditation…
After all, no one carries around a portable gallows.
Come on. The premeditation is shockingly clear.
By the way, what did Trump have to say about this particular turn of events as it was occurring? He let his supporters know that they had the “right idea”. He even stated that Pence “deserved” it! His own vice-president deserved to be murdered for not joining in and backing his big lie. Imagine it: the most loyal, sycophantic vice-president ever was to be hung by the neck for not performing a totally illegal act so that Trump could stay in power.
While Pence and Pelosi were not murdered, the melee did ultimately claim the lives of seven people.
We need only ask: Would Ashli Babbitt have breached a police line, stormed the Capitol building and tried to enter the chamber where members of congress were in the process of counting electoral votes if Trump hadn’t stood on the platform that day telling his supporters that they had to “fight like hell” or they wouldn’t “have a country anymore”? Would she have dared to do any of that without Trump telling her to? No, she would not have. She lost her life because of Trump and so, quite tragically, did police officer, Brian Sicknick. There he was trying to defend the Capitol and those lawmakers inside it as an insurrectionist mob screamed in his face and beat him for performing his duty. The mob even called him and other defenders of the citadel of democracy “traitors”. Imagine it!
Who were the traitors?
Who are the traitors?
Sadly, two police officers committed suicide after suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder in the months afterwards. They simply couldn’t live with the horror they had witnessed and the violence that had been perpetrated against them.
None of these lives would have been lost except for Trump and his “Big Lie”.
That is the bottom line and Trump bears full responsibility for causing these deaths.
If someone in a theater stands up and shouts “Fire!” again and again when there is no fire, and people in a panic race for the doors, trampling on one another in the process, with some dying in the stampede, the person would be held accountable. That is a fact. That is a legal certainty.
In just this way, Trump lied and made every effort to prevent a fair and free election from realizing its objective: that the winner would be allowed the constitutional right of a peaceful transfer of power.
Trump has done more than disgrace himself. He has harmed American democracy to a degree that is incalculable and, even worse, he committed crimes that cannot and must not go unpunished.
The Department of Justice surely knows this. Their duty is to act on it.
