What we heard today from Donald Trump’s lawyers is that he can no longer be held accountable for his actions to provoke a terrorist mob to violently overthrow a legitimate government process because he is no longer a sitting President. That’s wrong.
To my colleagues who believe the First Amendment was designed to protect the efforts of a lame duck President to overthrow our government, you might as well create a recipe for a democracy to die of its own accord.
No one, not even the President of the United States, has a First Amendment right to incite an insurrection against our government. That’s not a right—it’s a high crime.
We cannot create a ‘January exception’ for the President of the United States. An attempted coup that is not punished is simply a warm-up for the next time. Donald Trump is subject to a court of impeachment and will be tried by the Senate.
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