What Booth Said After He Killed Lincoln

[Duncan MacRae]

[Richard Smith]

Imagine if the JFK CTer/contrarians applied their usual standard of proof to this situation.

1) No one '"saw" Booth shoot Lincoln.  They merely heard a gunshot and turned to see a man resembling Booth holding a smoking gun at Lincoln's head.  That doesn't mean they saw him shoot Lincoln.  It's possible Lincoln committed suicide, Booth picked up the gun, and realized it looked bad and made a run for it.
2) There is nothing incriminating about Booth being there since he "worked" in Ford's Theatre.
3) There is a chain of custody issue with the gun since different people claimed to have found it after the shooting.
4)  There are no documents, photos, or prints that link Booth to that gun.
5)  Why would Booth, who was wealthy, use such a weapon?  Surely, he would have brought a better gun. 
6)  There are some witnesses among the crowd who were off in their description of Booth's appearance.  They got some details about his manner of dress, weight, and age wrong.  Therefore, we must entertain doubt that it was him.
7)  Booth's diary and other written materials could have been forged since handwriting analysis is not a science.
There were powerful forces that wanted Lincoln dead during the Civil War.
9)  Booth's motive can't be proven with certainty.  The war was effectively over.  So killing Lincoln was not going to accomplish anything at that point.

As a result, we can never conclude that Booth was guilty of the assassination.  It is only our "assumption" or "opinion" based upon acceptance of the official story. 

[Jon Banks]

Imagine if the JFK CTer/contrarians applied their usual standard of proof to this situation.

Booth never denied responsibility for killing Lincoln. He didn't claim to be a "patsy". The national security state of the 1860s was not keeping close tabs on Booth up until the point when he killed Lincoln. Booth's co-conspirators were held accountable.

I could go on but you get the point. There are few similarities between Lincoln's assassination and JFK's.

[Richard Smith]

Booth never denied responsibility for killing Lincoln. He didn't claim to be a "patsy". The national security state of the 1860s was not keeping close tabs on Booth up until the point when he killed Lincoln. Booth's co-conspirators were held accountable.

I could go on but you get the point. There are few similarities between Lincoln's assassination and JFK's.

Booth was shot and mortally wounded after the soldiers involved were specifically ordered to take him alive.  He never made any verbal statement to authorities as to his guilt.  That is what JFK CTers would characterize as "being silenced."  It would be deemed suspicious evidencing a plot to frame Booth.  Of course, there is no doubt that Booth was guilty.  Just as the evidence proves Oswald is guilty.  My point is that if you apply the same type of "logic" to the Lincoln assassination (or any event in history) as the CTers apply to the JFK assassination, then you go down endless rabbit holes.  They are conjuring false doubt to suit their desired narrative.  There is actually less evidence against Booth than Oswald when you compare the cases using JFK CTer standards of proof.   

[Jon Banks]

Booth was shot and mortally wounded after the soldiers involved were specifically ordered to take him alive.  He never made any verbal statement to authorities as to his guilt.  That is what JFK CTers would characterize as "being silenced."  It would be deemed suspicious evidencing a plot to frame Booth. 

You're ignoring the obvious, which is that Booth clearly hated Lincoln. He tried to kidnap him before the opportunity to kill him fell in his lap. If he survived to stand trial, he likely wouldn't have denied responsibility for killing Lincoln.

In contrast, Lee Oswald had no clear motive or animosity towards JFK, there's holes in the forensic evidence and witness statements, and he denied responsibility for shooting JFK.

So while one can look at all the evidence in the JFK assassination and reach the conclusion that Oswald likely did it alone, there's still room for doubts and we will never be able to resolve some of the problems with the forensic evidence due to poor evidence handling by the Dallas PD and destruction of evidence by several Federal government agencies.

It's apples to oranges to compare the Lincoln assassination to the JFK assassination...

[Richard Smith]

You're ignoring the obvious, which is that Booth clearly hated Lincoln. He tried to kidnap him before the opportunity to kill him fell in his lap. If he survived to stand trial, he likely wouldn't have denied responsibility for killing Lincoln.

In contrast, Lee Oswald had no clear motive or animosity towards JFK, there's holes in the forensic evidence and witness statements, and he denied responsibility for shooting JFK.

So while one can look at all the evidence in the JFK assassination and reach the conclusion that Oswald likely did it alone, there's still room for doubts and we will never be able to resolve some of the problems with the forensic evidence due to poor evidence handling by the Dallas PD and destruction of evidence by several Federal government agencies.

It's apples to oranges to compare the Lincoln assassination to the JFK assassination...

A contrarian JFK CTer would argue that the war was effectively over.  It did no good to assassinate Lincoln and replace him with a less sympathetic president.  How do we know that Booth hated Lincoln?  That is just the "official" story.  Perhaps he was an agent of the government infiltrating the Rebel spy rings in DC and pretending to hate Lincoln.  Stanton and Andrew Johnson could have set him up as a patsy.  No one can disprove it with absolute certainty.

[Jon Banks]

Literally no one argues that Booth didn’t kill Lincoln. Refer to my previous post for an explanation of why that is.

In contrast, even people who believed Lee Oswald was guilty suspected that there was a conspiracy. Including Lyndon Johnson, who requested the Warren Commission. If people with inside knowledge of the event like President Johnson and Robert Kennedy Sr suspected a conspiracy, it’s perfectly reasonable for anyone else to suspect a conspiracy in JFK’s assassination.

[Richard Smith]

Literally no one argues that Booth didn’t kill Lincoln. Refer to my previous post for an explanation of why that is.

In contrast, even people who believed Lee Oswald was guilty suspected that there was a conspiracy. Including Lyndon Johnson, who requested the Warren Commission. If people with inside knowledge of the event like President Johnson and Robert Kennedy Sr suspected a conspiracy, it’s perfectly reasonable for anyone else to suspect a conspiracy in JFK’s assassination.

Of course Booth killed Lincoln.  That is the point.  If the same standard of proof were applied to that case as in the JFK context, however, there would be "doubt."  No one can show that Booth pulled the trigger.  No one can link Booth to the murder weapon.  No one can link the bullet to the gun found at the scene.  No one knows for sure who found the gun (chain of custody).  Some witness were off as to description of Booth.  He "worked" in the theatre.  So his presence is not evidence of guilt.  No one can know his motive with certainty.  There can only be "speculation" and "assumptions."  And on and on.  The point is that the standard applied by CTers to Oswald is absurd.