Superior orders, also known as the Nuremberg defense or just following orders, is a plea in a court of law that a person, whether a member of the military, law enforcement, or the civilian population, should not be considered guilty of committing actions that were ordered by a superior officer or official. (Wikipedia)
Mark Meadows testified in court Monday that actions detailed in a sweeping indictment that accuses him of participating in an illegal conspiracy to overturn then-President Donald Trump's 2020 election loss were all part of his job as White House chief of staff. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
A jury has found former Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro guilty of criminal contempt of Congress, for refusing to give documents and to testify to a House committee investigating efforts to reverse the 2020 election results. Navarro has said he failed to comply because former President Donald Trump instructed him to say he was exempt due to executive privilege. (CNBC)
As John Eastman prepared to surrender to Georgia authorities last week for an indictment related to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, he issued a statement denouncing the criminal case as targeting attorneys “for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients.” Another defendant, Rudy Giuliani, struck a similar note, saying he was being indicted for his work as Donald Trump’s attorney. “I never thought I’d get indicted for being a lawyer,” he lamented. (AP)
Ahhh yes, an excuse after the fact. Ahhh yes, if it had been up to me, and me alone, I would have NOT done the dirty deed. Ahhh yes had I known there would be punishment for my crime, I might have not committed that crime. Never admit that you knew how evil your behaviors were, or how insidious the outcomes of your actions would become. Never own up to your decision to NOT do the unconscionable. Nope demonstrate how your own moral compass stopped working and NOT until the consequences of your choices fucked you over, did you decide, ahhh, I know, I’ll say I was just following orders!
In a 1962 letter, as a last-ditch effort for clemency, Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann wrote that he and other low-level officers were “forced to serve as mere instruments,” shifting the responsibility for the deaths of millions of Jews to his superiors. The “just following orders” defense, made famous in the post-WWII Nuremberg trials, featured heavily in Eichmann’s court hearings. (PBS News Hour)
