Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) defended her decision to convict former President Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection during an appearance Tuesday on WLOB radio with host Ray Richardson, explaining that she voted to convict Trump not just based on his January 6 speech alone but his “culmination of actions which started even before the election occurred.”
I think there’s an argument to be made that he did incite for months and that led to the “riot” in the Capitol. I would disagree with such an argument, but I understand it at least. I don’t know about the “before the election” bit, but that’s not my biggest complaint with what she said.
Here’s the problem.
That’s not what Trump was charged with. He was charged with incitement on January 6th. The only quote that was supplied was from something he said on that day. No evidence of any actions taken before January 6th was supplied at the trial, nor was it included in the charge.
Collins is essentially saying that someone being charged with robbery of a 7-11 would be guilty because one of the jurors knew that the alleged perpetrator had robbed an entirely different 7-11 a month before.
That’s pathetic reasoning and antithetical to everything in American jurisprudence. If she felt that the only way she could vote for his conviction was because of things he did before the date of the riot, that were not mentioned in the trial, then she had a duty to acquit. A duty that she failed.
This reasoning makes me like her less. I’m generally willing to give Collins the benefit of the doubt, because she’s from a remarkably blue state, and yet has managed to hold her position as a Republican Senator for quite some time, but this is too far. This is mentally deficient. I can’t condone that.
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