Yeah. It Was Incitement

Many legal experts who have, until now, opined that Trump's remarks on the Ellipse did not rise to level of incitement to riot, have now changed their view, 

“He is trying to bring in not just the guns, but the people with the guns, into the mob,” left-leaning Fordham Law Professor Shugerman told TPM. “It’s not a slam-dunk case yet, but up until yesterday, most of what we had was political speech.”

The difference for Shugerman, too, came with Trump’s alleged “take the f-ing mags away” remark.

“Those three sentences give you mens rea,” he added — the legal term for when a person has knowledge that they’re doing something that violates the law.

Even Andrew McCarthy of the National Review, typically more interested in condemning those investigating Trump, conceded that Hutchinson’s testimony pointed to the former President being “culpable” for the riot.

“It’s a vibe shift,” Rozenshtein laughed.

At the time, per Hutchinson’s testimony, Trump had been informed that men armed with AR-15s and “spears” were gathering near the Ellipse. Hutchinson testified that Trump then ordered the armed men to be allowed into the crowd with their weapons. He then directed the crowd to the Capitol.

Shugerman also believed before Hutchinson’s testimony that Trump hadn’t met the bar for a crime. But he said that after hearing Hutchinson’s testimony, he saw two elements of a criminal charge for incitement potentially met: intent, and a bad act.

“Some speech is performative, but if a president give an order to do something, that’s an order,” Shugerman said. “This is not just political speech anymore — an order to take away metal detectors is a concrete act.”