(a) Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce or uses any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including, but not limited to, the mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, with intent—
(1) to incite a riot; or
(2) to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot; or
(3) to commit any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or
(4) to aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot;
and who either during the course of any such travel or use or thereafter performs or attempts to perform any other overt act for any purpose specified in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), or (D) of this paragraph— [1]
Shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
The Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University explains, Fact Sheet on Threats and Incitement to Violence Related to the Election:
In the United States, the First Amendment guarantees the freedom to express one’s views, to peacefully assemble with others who share those views, and to petition the government for redress of grievances. But these rights are not [absolute]— attempts to intimidate and coerce through threats of violence, stalking, and armed paramilitary activity are not constitutionally protected.
• The First Amendment does not protect violent or unlawful conduct, even if the person engaging in it intends to express an idea. United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 376 (1968).
• The First Amendment does not protect speech that incites imminent violence or lawlessness. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969).
• Threats of violence, stalking, and harrassing people, whether private individuals or public officials, are not protected by the First Amendment and may violate multiple federal and state criminal laws.
• Crimes of violence intended to intimidate and coerce are considered terrorism under federal law, see 18 U.S.C. § 2331, and the laws of many states, and threats to commit such crimes are not protected by the First Amendment.
• It is a felony under federal law to intentionally “solicit, command, induce, or otherwise endeavor to persuade” another person to engage in a crime of violence against a person or property. 18 U.S.C. § 373. Many states have similar laws.
• Neither the First nor Second Amendment protects private armed paramilitary organizations.
• The Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms for self defense, but does not protect private paramilitary organizations. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 621 (2008) (citing Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886)).
• Collective armed action by private paramilitary organizations is unauthorized in every state and violates criminal laws in many states. See, e.g., Ga. Code §§ 38-2-277, 16-11-151; Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 70.528a; 750.215; 18 Pa. C.S.A. § 5515; Wis. Stat. § 946.69.
With this said, the Associated Press reports, Trump says he expects to be arrested, calls for protest:
Donald Trump claimed on Saturday that his arrest was imminent and issued an extraordinary call for his supporters to protest [i.e, violent protest] as a New York grand jury investigates hush money payments to women who alleged sexual encounters with the former president.
Despite no evidence that Manhattan prosecutors have given any official notice to him or his lawyers, Trump declared in a post on his social media platform that he expected to be taken into custody on Tuesday. The message seemed designed to preempt a formal announcement from prosecutors and to galvanize outrage from his base of [MAGA thugs] in advance of charges widely seen as coming soon.
In its direct encouragement of protest, and his capital letter demand to “TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” the post evoked in foreboding ways the rhetoric he used shortly before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. After hearing from the then-president at a Washington rally that morning, his supporters marched to the Capitol and tried to stop the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s White House victory, breaking through doors and windows of the building and leaving officers beaten and bloodied.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg is thought to be eyeing charges in the hush money investigation and recently offered Trump a chance to testify before the grand jury [as required by New York law]. Local law enforcement officials are bracing for the public safety ramifications of an unprecedented prosecution of a former American president.
But there has been no public announcement of any time frame for the grand jury’s secret work in the case. At least one additional witness is expected to testify, further indicating that no vote to indict has yet been taken, according to a person familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to publicly discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.
That did not stop Trump from taking to his social media platform to say “illegal leaks” from Bragg’s office indicate that “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK.”
A spokesperson and a lawyer for Trump said his Truth Social post was based on media reports rather than any actual update from, or communication with, prosecutors. The district attorney’s office declined to comment Saturday.
Should Trump be indicted, he would be arrested only if he refused to surrender. Trump’s lawyers have previously said he would follow normal procedure, meaning he would likely agree to surrender at a New York Police Department precinct or directly to Bragg’s office.
Please do not deprive the country of seeing this third-rate crime boss “perp walked.”
It is unclear whether Trump’s supporters would heed his protest call. [Really? Does “stand back and stand by” not ring a bell with you?] Trump’s posts on Truth Social generally receive far less attention than he used to get on Twitter, but he maintains a deeply loyal base. The aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, in which hundreds of Trump loyalists were arrested and prosecuted in federal court, may also have dampened the passion among supporters for violent action.
The indictment of Trump, 76, would be an extraordinary development after years of investigations into his business, political and personal dealings. Though Trump may look to denounce the prosecution as a politically motivated effort to derail his 2024 bid for the White House, there’s no question that it would function as a campaign trail distraction and give fodder for opponents and critics tired of the legal scandals that have long shadowed him.
In addition to the hush money probe in New York, Trump faces separate criminal investigations in Atlanta and Washington over his efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election.
A Justice Department special counsel has also been presenting evidence before a grand jury investigating Trump’s possession of hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate. It is not clear when those investigations will end or whether they might result in criminal charges, but they will continue regardless of what happens in New York, underscoring the ongoing gravity – and broad geographic scope – of the legal challenges confronting the former president.
Trump’s post Saturday echoes one made last summer when he broke the news on Truth Social that the FBI was searching his Florida home as part of an investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents.
News of that search sparked a flood of contributions to Trump’s political operation, and on Saturday, Trump sent out a a fundraising email to his supporters that said the “MANHATTAN D.A. COULD BE CLOSE TO CHARGING TRUMP.”
Don’t be a chump, don’t give your money to this criminal Trump.
The grand jury has been hearing from witnesses, including former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who says he orchestrated payments in 2016 to two women to silence them about sexual encounters they said they had with Trump a decade earlier.
Trump denies the encounters occurred, says he did nothing wrong and has cast the investigation as a “witch hunt” by a Democratic prosecutor bent on sabotaging the Republican’s 2024 campaign. Trump also has labeled Bragg, who is Black, a “racist” and has accused the prosecutor of letting crime in the city run amok while he has focused on Trump. New York remains one of the safest cities in the country.
Bragg’s office has apparently been examining whether any state laws were broken in connection with the payments or the way Trump’s company compensated Cohen for his work to keep the women’s allegations quiet.
Porn actor Stormy Daniels and at least two former Trump aides — onetime political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokesperson Hope Hicks — are among witnesses who have met with prosecutors in recent weeks.
Cohen has said that at Trump’s direction, he arranged payments totaling $280,000 to Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. According to Cohen, the payouts were to buy their silence about Trump, who was then in the thick of his first presidential campaign.
Cohen and federal prosecutors said Trump’s company paid him $420,000 as reimbursement for the $130,000 payment to Daniels and to cover bonuses and other supposed expenses. The company classified those payments internally as legal expenses. The $150,000 payment to McDougal was made by the then-publisher of the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer, which kept her story from coming to light.
Federal prosecutors agreed not to prosecute the Enquirer’s corporate parent in exchange for its cooperation in a campaign finance investigation that led to charges against Cohen in 2018. Prosecutors said the payments to Daniels and McDougal amounted to impermissible, unrecorded gifts to Trump’s election effort.
Cohen pleaded guilty, served prison time and was disbarred. Federal prosecutors never charged Trump with any crime.
Why wait to arrest him? Trump has a track record of inciting violence, he is inciting violence once again against the Justice System: the Manhattan Prosecutor’s office, the Judge who issues the arrest warrant, the law enforcement officers who arrest him and book him, the very rule of law itself. This rabid animal needs to be caged.
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UPDATE: Another corrupt Trump attorney who needs to be disbarred: “Trump lawyer Alina Habba told CNN’s Paula Reid Sunday there would be serious consequences if Trump were to be indicted for a mere misdemeanor – one possible outcome of the Manhattan probe. “It is going to cause mayhem, Paula. I mean, it’s just a very scary time in our country,” Habba said. But she also said that “no one wants anyone to get hurt” and Trump supporters should be ‘peaceful.'” CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/20/politics/trump-possible-indictment-implications/index.html
Tom Nichols writes at The Atlantic, “Trump Did It Again”, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/trump-arrest-indictment-protesters-mob/673437/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Let us begin with the obvious thing that just happened: This morning, Donald Trump threatened to summon a mob—for the second time in two years—to his defense. The former president of the United States and a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for the White House in 2024, facing a possible indictment in New York, claimed to know the exact day on which he would be arrested and then called on his supporters to “protest.” Trump and his cult know what a call for “protest” means: The last time he rallied his faithful supporters this way, they stormed the U.S. Capitol, which resulted in death and destruction and many, many prison sentences.
[T]rump’s message today to the American people has already come through loud and clear: “I am too dangerous to arrest.”
[T]rump himself today upped the ante by saying, in effect, that it doesn’t matter what’s in the indictment. Instead, he is warning all of us, point-blank, that he will violate the law if he wants to, and if you don’t like it, you can take it up with the mob that he can summon at will. This is pure authoritarianism, the flex of a would-be American caudillo who is betting that our fear of his goons is greater than our commitment to the rule of law. [Not hardly.] Once someone like Trump issues that kind of challenge, it doesn’t matter if the indictment is for murder, campaign-finance violations, or mopery with intent to gawk: The issue is whether our legal institutions can be bullied into paralysis.
[T]rump, once again, is stress testing our institutions, and if he can scare off a state indictment by threatening a riot, he’ll do it again. After all, he thinks he got away with it on January 6, 2021—and so far, he has.
Trump, for his part, seems to think that being the GOP presidential front-runner should matter, and both Trump’s friends and enemies alike seem to think that an indictment would seal his nomination. That would certainly explain the silence from leading Republicans about Trump’s implied threat to summon another mob.
Well, not exactly silence. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whose entire career is bound up in a handful of extremist votes in his own caucus, has Trump’s back.
[I] am not so sure that this panicked, all-caps call from Trump will be to his benefit. It’s possible that Trump, finally, is approaching his Joe McCarthy moment, although many of his critics (including me) have seen such moments come and go. Nevertheless, one riot might be explained away. Two riots, with the promise of more to come, might be intolerable.
But if this is what the Republicans want, so be it. If an indictment secures Trump the nomination, it will likely also cost him the election.
[P]erhaps Alvin Bragg’s case isn’t all that strong, and perhaps Trump will beat him in court. But that is for a judge and jury to decide, not a bunch of short-fused cultists toting bear spray and wearing blue Trump flags like superhero capes. Trump’s entire political career has been an attack on the Constitution and the rule of law, and he is telling us yet again, in the clearest terms, that the law does not apply to him and never will.
What happens next with his case is up to the legal system, but whether this lawless and deranged authoritarian returns to Washington is up to all of us.
This is a well written summary