Accusation: Van der Veen’s “doctored testimony” claim, unpacked

In the days following the acquittal of former President Donald Trump over an article of indictment over incitement to insurrection, his lawyers and allies tried to arm the trial with allegations that the management used indictments to use manufacturing evidence.

These allegations are extremely weak and cannot withstand basic investigation. But they provide people like Trump attorney Michael van der Veen and Donald Trump Jr. with the pretext of complaining on TV about how unfairly treated Donald Trump.

In a Saturday interview with CBS that was viewed nearly 10 million times while published, Van der Veen went so far as to equate the January 6 uprising with the fact that five people died with Trump’s treatment during the indictment. .

“What happened at the Capitol on January 6 is absolutely awful, but what happened during the trial at the Capitol was not too far from that,” he said. “The prosecutors doctored evidence in this case.”

Cana News host Lana Zak responded by trying to unpack what van der Veen meant by saying the Democrats ‘doctored evidence’. It didn’t sound like much.

‘To be clear to our viewers, this is what you’re talking about now, a tick on Twitter that did not exist on that particular tweet, a’ 2020 ‘that should have actually read’ 2021 ‘, and the selective editing, you say, of the tapes. Is this the proven evidence you are talking about? she asked.

Zak’s characterization of van der Veen’s allegations was accurate. Before she could finish the question, Van der Veen – perhaps realizing how vague his allegations sounded when they were interpreted – fired angrily.

‘Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait – is that not enough for you? No no no. It’s not good to doctor a little evidence, ” he said, adding later: ‘I can not believe you would ask me a question indicating that it is good to just doctor a little evidence. ‘

Van der Veen’s contradiction was widely praised by right-wing experts. Less opposing but equally eloquent was Donald Trump Jr. ‘s appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on Monday night, when he went so far as to suggest that the Housekeepers should be arrested.

“The reality is this: if it was not a kangaroo court, you would have to worry the Republicans about going to the alleged prosecution because they literally produced evidence,” he said. ‘I mean, imagine that any prosecutor in America was caught giving evidence against a witness. It could be a prison sentence. They would be banned, they would be thrown out of their positions, and they would be charged. This should happen here as they manufacture, affix false blue ticks, change tweets and do all these things effectively. ”

The reality is that 57 senators – including seven Republicans – voted to convict him despite Trump’s acquittal. And even GOP lawmakers who voted for acquittal on procedural grounds, including minority leader Mitch McConnell, have made it clear that they hold Trump accountable for the January 6 uprising.

Nevertheless, Van der Veen and Don Jr. it looks like Trump’s second indictment was just another episode of the anti-Trump witch hunt. But they say people will not take the time to explore the benefits of what they claim because there is no there there.

The outrage is performative, not substantive

Allegations about the accusation of Housekeepers manipulating evidence first came up during the presentation by Trump’s attorney, David Schoen, during Friday’s part of the indictment, when he said: “We have reason to believe that the Home Managers manipulated evidence and selectively processed footage. “

Schoen’s purpose was to discredit the case of the prosecution by fighting the credibility of the House Managers, but the specific examples he cited did not affect their case.

One was dealing with a photo from an article in the New York Times in which Chief Prosecutor Jamie Raskin (D-MD) prepares for the trial by looking at a computer monitor displaying a Trump tweet with the wrong date at bottom. . Schoen quoted this photo as claiming that the Democrats were accumulating evidence, but as he even admitted, the error was corrected before the trial.

The other specific allegations made by Schoen and van der Veen were equally weak. One had to deal with the year on a Trump tweet that executives showed during the trial reading ‘2021’ instead of ‘2020’. Another had to do with a Twitter account tweeted by Trump, and showed up with a blue check mark when the account was not verified. Schoen also argued with the prosecution over the importance of spelling errors in tweets that Trump tweeted again, accusing Democrats of “selectively editing” the footage presented during the trial by short excerpts from Trump’s speech on Jan. 6 before showing the revolt instead of longer parts of it. (The implication is that because Trump once urged his followers in passing to remain peaceful during a speech in which he referred to ‘fighting’ more than 20 times, it is not the case that he incited anything.)

To be clear, the deviations on the tweets are legal errors, but they had absolutely no effect on the actual content of the posts involved or on the content of the case’s managers. And as an assistant explained to House executives after Schoen revealed these inconsistencies, the mistakes happened because prosecutors had to recreate Trump’s tweets from scratch after his account was permanently suspended.

“The text is completely unchanged,” the assistant told The Hill. ‘The final image accidentally has a blue verification mark, but its contents were completely accurate. What’s the point of Trump’s lawyers? ‘

The point, of course, was not to present a substantial defense of Trump, but to try to discredit the Democrats, while giving people like van der Veen the chance for performative outrage during TV hits. And to that end, the mission has been accomplished.