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NationofChange
Trump campaign paid millions to Jan. 6 Capitol riot
“It was his duty as commander-in-chief to stop the violence. And he alone had that power because they believed that they were following his orders. They said so.”
Newly identified payments in recent Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings show people involved in organizing the protests on Jan. 6 received even larger sums from Trump’s 2020 campaign than previously known, reports Open Secrets. $3.5 million in direct payments to be exact.
It is also believed that there might’ve been more payments to the January 6 organizers that did not get filed through the FEC.
At his impeachment trial for inciting insurrection, Donald Trump’s lawyers claimed that Trump’s exhortations to his followers before the attack on the Capitol were protected free speech under the First Amendment. But as 143 other constitutional law scholars from across the political spectrum and I collectively noted, that claim was “legally frivolous.” Moreover, the First Amendment will not protect Trump if he is charged with committing criminal offenses.
The First Amendment does not apply in an impeachment trial because a president (or former president) can be impeached even for lawful conduct if he abused his official power while in office. Impeachment is a political, not a legal, proceeding. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in