Just the News reports that evidence is mounting that the attack on the Capitol was pre-planned and that the premise of the Democratic impeachment of Trump has been weakened. Attorney Kenneth Starr said House lawmakers should “apologize to the former president (Trump) and apologize to the American people.
The emerging evidence also raises the question of whether the FBI and other security agencies acted aggressively enough to thwart the violence, according to the report.
The newly filed federal charges against anti-government activists, filed just days before former President Trump’s impeachment deliberations began, provide new and compelling evidence that the alleged perpetrators of the congressional riots premeditated their attacks days and weeks in advance and in full view of the FBI, which has vowed to remain vigilant against extremist threats.
A dozen FBI affidavits supporting charges against more than 200 defendants show that the rioters planned ahead on social media sites. The plans included training, setting up locations, identifying commanders on the scene, asking for cash donations and combat and communications equipment.
More than half a dozen suspects are now charged with conspiring to commit violence in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 riots. Court records show that early operations identified in court documents date back to November, and that plans and rhetoric began to accelerate after Christmas.
This growing body of evidence raises questions about whether the FBI and other security agencies acted proactively enough to thwart the violence. It also undercuts the impeachment claims of House Democrats (supported by 10 Republicans) who believe Trump’s speech incited the riots, legal experts told Just the News.
Kenneth Starr, a former federal appeals judge, attorney general and independent counsel for Whitewater, said, “I wish those 10 Republicans, and hopefully even some Democrats, would say that because we’re now looking at the media, the New York Times, the Washington Post and all the people who are covering the timeline, and that’s the truth.”
“[House lawmakers] made a huge, huge mistake,” said Starr, who was part of the defense team for Trump’s first Senate impeachment consideration.” So walk back and apologize to the former president and apologize to the American people that I should not have voted for it without knowing all the facts and that I made a hasty judgment.”
Trump’s lawyers plan to argue that the president’s speech did not, in fact, incite violence, but rather called for peaceful protest, protected by the First Amendment. They have also prepared a video , showing Democrats making comments encouraging violence dating back to last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests.
George Washington University legal scholar Jonathan Turley, a Democrat who has defended Trump on the impeachment issue, argued in a column published Sunday in The Hill that the impeachment charges do not meet the legal standard for incitement.
Trump did not call for the use of force, Turley wrote. He told supporters to ‘go in peace’ and ‘cheer on’ his allies in Congress.”
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