August 19, 2023
Reasonableness and the Trump Indictments
By Tom G.K. Swift
Following the principle of interpretative charity, it is safe to say that Donald Trump's basic idea regarding the 2020 election is that his belief that the election was stolen is reasonable. This means that Trump is not like a bank robber, as Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland analogizes him to. Here's Raskin: "Let’s say you’re convinced that your bank has cheated you out of money, and your personal lawyer, the White House counsel, and the attorney general tell you that you’re wrong, and 60 federal and state courts tell you that the bank is right and that you’re wrong, but you still believe it. You’re just outraged. That does not give you a right to rob the bank or a defense in the event that you’re prosecuted for robbing the bank. In other words, Trump's mistake about what the law is cannot excuse his criminal conduct."
What's wrong with this analogy is partly that whereas you do not, for any reason whatsoever, have a right to rob a bank, you do have a right to petition the government for redress of grievances -- for example, when bad actors have apparently tried to steal an election from you or your allies. But I want to see if we can peel back some layers of the onion and maybe find out what prompts this analogy by Raskin, a former law professor.
more
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/08/reasonableness_and_the_trump_indictments.html
