Trump-led insurrection would have violated Noem's riot boosting law

After winning North Dakota by a 36% margin the Trump Organization ignored Republican Governor Doug Burgum's request for a "major disaster declaration" to help cover some of the estimated $38 million gift to the law enforcement industry who busted heads and chilled the civil rights of water protectors trying to stop the Dakota Excess pipeline.

Mercenaries and National Guard troops brutalized many of the thousands of demonstrators camped on federal land near Cannon Ball, North Dakota where some 761 people were arrested between early August and late February. Trump apparatchiks even referred to the American Indians and their compatriots as jihadists or insurgents. But as Commander in Chief Donald Trump clearly failed the State of North Dakota for not removing the protesting citizens from land managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

“The Corps needed to be on the record saying we do support constitutional rights to protest,” Col. John Henderson, who served as commander of the Corps’ Omaha District during the protests, testified Feb. 27. The Corps has authority over a segment of the pipeline that crosses under the Missouri River north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. [Judge faults Corps for outcome of DAPL protests as trial wraps up third week]

Recall that in response to that citizen resistance in a neighboring state Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem signed a bill that revived the state’s criminal and civil penalties for rioting and incitement so had Donald Trump led his insurrection in South Dakota he would have run afoul of her riot boosting law. 

Noem's anti-civil rights actions are no accident. She's is a graduate of the Koch Brothers' American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC, an anti-think tank think tank that teaches how wedge issues raise campaign dollars for the extreme white wing of the Republican Party. South Dakota's GOP legislators and candidates enjoy millions in lobbyist benefits from ALEC. 

Intervenors were so frustrated with Mrs. Noem after she blew off a meeting with tribal members in 2019 the backlash resulted in her being banned from the Oglala Lakota Nation where she is forbidden to set foot again today. 

Learn more at High Country News.

“In South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has pushed an agenda to criminalize protests w/ her Riot Boosting Act, yet under those same standards of ‘riot boosting’ #45 would be guilty of committing that crime in blatantly inciting the mayhem that unfolded” - @NickTilsen#ImpeachTrumpNow

— NDN Collective (@ndncollective) January 8, 2021