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My completely amateur and unqualified opinion after reading the indictment - I dunno. It's not a nothingburger, but it feels way less solid than the documents charges. It's not exactly clear which actions are supposed to constitute which elements of which offense. Like, I feel like you could probably go through and make some argument that this conversation counts as conspiracy and that action counts as obstruction and whatever, but it's kind of been left as an exercise for the reader.
Count two probably gets there. It seems clear that Trump was actively involved in discussing and planning efforts to obstruct the certification of the election. Probably it turns on whether or not the DoJ can prove that he did so "corruptly", whatever that means in this context, but they probably can. I'm less confident of the other charges.
There's something so weird about this to me.
Sure in the most absolutely tortured meaning of the word "obstruct". His claim was that the election as being presented was invalid, and he was trying to use the court/legislative system to elucidate the correct/legal outcome.
This would be like if I got a traffic ticket, showed up in court and argued that the ticket was given in error, failed, and was then charged with "obstruction" for challenging the state.
If every challenge to an election is henceforward seen as "obstruction" then where the hell does that leave us? It seems to make elections a sortof winner takes all battle where the winners take office, and the losers end up in jail.
It was valid to protest the election and certification.
Nothing Trump said incited violence, and his literal words send the protesters home.
The actual riots were incited by Federal provocateurs, it being well-established now that many of the people who entered the Capitol were literal agents for the FBI.
Even the NYT published this very washed-over account about FBI informants among the rioters:
https://archive.is/5J0Db
(The same news organizations will then call it a "conspiracy theory" to suggest that there were FBI informants at the Capitol. Not to mention the Ray Epps affair: https://twitter.com/DarrenJBeattie/status/1547396003690577921 )
There's in important distinction to be made between spooks and snitches.
"Someone in the crowd was giving information to the FBI" is very different to "FBI agents instigated the riot".
DOJ has refused to specify how many informants they had in the crowd, even though we know of several. They've refused to elaborate on footage showing the Capitol being unlocked from the inside by Capitol agents. And they won't prosecute Ray Epps.
Actually, you know what? I think a lot of your posts on this topic are nonsense but I'm going to back down and concede you may have a point here. I've never heard of Epps till today, but if it's true that the guy caught on video loudly advocating for an incursion into the Capitol itself in advance of the event has not been prosecuted... yeah that's a massive red flag.
Edit: Okay, so apparently he's saying he's going to be charged, but as far as I can tell it hasn't happened yet? It's plausible his case took longer because of his unique role in instigating the riot... I'll wait and see. But if he doesn't get hit with some heavy incitement-type charges I'll hmmmmm very loudly.
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