Judging Freedom - Jan. 6 defendant _followed President Trump_s instructions

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

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Hi everyone, excuse me, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, January 17th, 2023. It's about 9.50 in the morning here on the East Coast of the United States. You know, if you're charged with a crime in most state courts, you can decide whether or not you're going to be tried by a jury or by a judge. You can waive your right to a jury trial. In the federal system, if you want to waive your right, waive, give up your right to a jury trial, you need the consent of the government. The government very rarely gives that because they prefer to argue their case before a jury. In a couple of the January 6th cases, the defendant has asked for a bench trial where the judge serves as the judge and the jury, and the government has gone along with it. And yesterday, in an interesting case,

at the end of the bench trial, the judge usually issues a written opinion. The judge won't sit there and say guilty, not guilty, like a jury does. The judge has to give reasons, and rather than just state the reasons in the courtroom, the judge takes a little while and writes the reasons out for the guilty or not guilty verdict. In this case, a federal judge in D.C. found the defendant guilty of illegally entering upon a building with intent to obstruct a governmental function. That's not a surprise. What is a surprise is that in this ruling, the judge found that the defendant was following the lead of the President of the United States, Donald Trump. So without Trump being a party to the case, without anybody defending him in the courtroom, just on the basis of the evidence that the government produced and the defendant produced in this bench trial, this federal judge concluded that Donald Trump intended to rile up the crowd and in fact succeeded in doing so with this one defendant. This is very

interesting. The Justice Department will take this into account. Trump obviously can't be punished for this. He wasn't charged with a crime and obviously therefore wasn't convicted of one. But this is the first time that I know of that a federal judge sitting as an impartial jury in a case, hearing evidence about the defendant in the case, hearing evidence about the behavior of the president, concluded that the president was behind this, that he riled up a crowd and succeeded in riling up this defendant. There'll be much more to hear on this, more as we get it. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.