The president accused a group of Democrats of “sedition punishable by death.” Six members of parliament called on the military to reject the illegal orders.
White House: President Trump does not want to execute members of Congress
President Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition, saying they “deserve the death penalty.” However, the White House has said it does not want to execute any members of Congress.
Approximately 20,000 people gathered to watch the execution, the largest crowd for a hanging in early American history.
crime? agitation. Thomas Hickey, George Washington’s personal guard, was part of a plot by British sympathizers to kill the future president. He was hanged days before the Founding Fathers declared independence from King George III.
Nearly 250 years later, President Donald Trump is bringing up the word against a Democrat who made a video urging military personnel to resist illegal orders. On November 20th, the president accused six Democratic congressmen of “seditious conduct punishable by the death penalty.”
But American law has evolved significantly since the American Revolution and Hickey’s execution in what would become Manhattan’s Chinatown. Legal experts told USA TODAY that the president’s charges are likely to fail in court. And according to statutory law, sedition is punishable by a fine and up to 20 years in prison, not the death penalty.
Steve Schwinn, a constitutional law professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Law, said of the president’s social media posts: “His posts are completely wrong and only serve to inflame an already dangerous environment.” “What they’re saying is far from inflammatory.”
As President Trump seeks to send troops into cities, Democrats’ call for the military to “refuse unlawful orders” is not inflammatory, multiple experts told USA TODAY.
“The speech Mr. Trump is criticizing simply states the law that soldiers cannot obey orders that are unconstitutional or illegal,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. “This accusation is baseless and unnecessarily dampens criticism of the president’s actions.”
White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt was asked at a press conference on November 20 whether President Trump wanted to execute members of Congress, and she answered, “No.”
Justice Department spokeswoman Natalie Baldassar declined to comment on whether the Justice Department would investigate the lawmakers following the president’s comments.
riots in american history
Title 18 of Section 2384 of the United States Code, titled “Seditious Conspiracy,” defines sedition as a conspiracy “to overthrow, suppress, or destroy the government of the United States by force, or to impede, obstruct, or delay by force the execution of the laws of the United States.”
Legal scholars say prosecutors rarely charge people with sedition. However, the law saw use during the anarchist scare around World War I, and against Puerto Rican nationalists in the 1950s.
Anarchists were charged with sedition for procuring weapons, distributing anti-war propaganda, and encouraging people to resist compulsory military service.
In 1954, 17 Puerto Rican nationalists were convicted or found guilty of sedition. The group waged a three-year conspiracy to secure the island’s independence, culminating in the shooting at the U.S. Capitol.
According to Schwinn, a notable example of incitement in modern times occurred during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio has been sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy after organizing an effort to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
President Trump approved pardons for about 1,600 people charged in the riot, including Tarrio, who received the longest prison term in connection with the riot.
President Trump and his supporters “hang me up”
Under U.S. law, sedition is not punishable by death. However, that did not stop many of his supporters from calling for the death penalty.
“Each and every traitor to our country must be arrested and brought to justice,” the president wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social, before adding, “Seditious act, deserves the death penalty!”
The video, which tells troops to resist illegal orders, was released amid efforts by President Trump to deploy troops to cities across the country to quell what he calls unrest and rampant crime. President Trump said the law was not being enforced in some Democratic-controlled cities and that an insurrection was underway.
The president also shared quotes from supporters who criticized the Democratic Party.
Among Trump’s “acknowledge the truth” posts were angry posts calling members of Congress “traitors” and “domestic terrorist Democrats,” and others saying, “George Washington hang them!!”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor on November 20 that Trump’s post should be taken as an “blatant threat.”
“Let me be clear: The president of the United States is calling for the execution of an elected official. This is blatant intimidation, and it is extremely serious,” he said.
