Writing for Just Security this Monday, legal analyst Albert W. Alschuler says that most scholars and legal experts are missing a key path to prosecuting Donald Trump for his role in sparking the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., namely the fact that Trump failed to intervene to stop the riot, making him an accomplice.
“Failing to prevent a crime usually does not make someone an accomplice, but it is sufficient when this person had a legal duty to intervene,” Alschuler writes. “For this reason, a railroad conductor who failed to prevent passengers from transporting bootleg liquor was himself convicted of transporting the liquor. Similarly, a parent who made no effort to stop an assault on her child was guilty of the assault herself. And a police officer who arranges to be somewhere else at the time of a robbery aids and abets the robbery. This officer can be convicted along with the robbers at the scene.”
Alschuler cites Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, where is says a president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
According to Alschuler, Trump ability to enforce the law was “unique.”
“Like other public officials, he could have sought the assistance of additional police officers or military forces, but, unlike anyone else in America, he had a less costly and probably more effective way to bring the crime to a halt: He could simply have asked his followers to stop,” he writes.
Read the full article over at Just Security.