Yes, January 6th Was an Insurrection

“The attempted insurrection by President Trump and his supporters had failed. But make no mistake: The violent events of January 6th were the direct result of a deliberate months-long campaign by President Trump to overturn illegally an election that he did not win.”

In recent months, several states in the United States have taken up the question of whether former President Donald Trump should be excluded from ballots in the 2024 presidential election on the basis that he engaged in insurrectionary acts on January 6, 2021, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. For example, Michigan, Minnesota, and California have decided to allow President Trump to remain on the ballot. Colorado and Maine, however, have removed him from the ballot. As early as today, it is expected that President Trump will file an appeal to remain on the Colorado and Maine ballots.

The recent decisions by the Colorado Supreme Court and Maine’s Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, have created a firestorm of controversy among commentators on the Right, many if not all of whom believe that the decisions are political rather than judicial, the latest manifestation of a “deep state” conspiracy to disenfranchise Republican votes and keep President Trump out of the Oval Office. Although Laurence Tribe has pointed out that President Trump has been disqualified rather than sanctioned, many on the Right act as if the decisions are a punishment, angrily pointing out that President Trump has not been convicted of a crime.

At the heart of the controversy is the two-fold question of whether the January 6, 2021 riot at the United States Capitol was an outright insurrection, as well as whether President Trump bears responsibility for inciting it. The answer should be crystal clear to anyone who has reviewed the abundance of publicly available evidence. The January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol by more than 2,000 supporters of President Trump’s was a riot directly incited by a months-long campaign by President Trump to overturn an election he did not win. The goal was to install himself illegally as president in lieu of the candidate who won more votes: President-elect Joe Biden. In other words, the January 6th riot was the violent climax of a deliberately directed coup attempt planned by the former President and his closest aides.