Some legal commentators, including myself, questioned the process of “counting” electoral votes on January 6.

The meeting of Congress on January 6 is required by statute — 3 U.S.C. Sec 15, referred to as the “Electoral Count Act.” Pursuant to that statute, the President of the Senate — the Vice President — shall open and announce the vote of each state’s electors of the Electoral College. It also establishes a mechanism for the filing of “objections” by Members of the House and Senate to the counting of any state’s electors as announced.

But the statute alters the process adopted in the 12th Amendment to the Constitution — something a statute cannot do. The 12th Amendment only provides that the President of the Senate shall open the certificates and the votes shall be counted. It confers no power on Congress to adjust or reject the vote count as cast by the electors. Thus, the opening of the certificates and counting of votes is merely a ministerial act, not a substantive one. The outcome of the election will be the same whether the ceremonial opening of the certificates takes place or not.

If Congress is meeting for purely ceremonial purposes, a question arises as to whether the January 6 protesters were disrupting any actual “government business or official function” as contemplated by the statute. //

peregry • 4 hours ago

You're assuming that the government wanted to get big sentences for these people.

They don't.

Rather, they WANT the outrage when all these "insurrectionists" either walk or get minimal sentences. The media and administration will spin it as the courts favoring these people and/or letting them off easy because they're "white" and will wink and nod and talk about how if these defendants were minorities the book would have been thrown at them.

The entire point is to create MORE outrage at Trump and those who were at the capital on Jan. 7, and against the right in general, by creating impossible expectations among their base and then when the results of the legal system do not match the expected outcome, to call it injustice... //

skeptic62 peregry • 3 hours ago

These “trials” have more to do with November 2022 than they do with January 2021. Our justice system has been weaponized by the Left. //

Mudboy skeptic62 • 2 hours ago

They are following Lenin's successful formula to overthrow a country, by legitimizing criminal anarchy and co-opting the justice system.