Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers in his indictment delivered a sad, brief defense in his indictment on Friday, saying his speech before the riot in the Capitol was “ordinary political rhetoric” and blew the proceedings as a “sham” fueled. by the ‘political hatred’ of the Democrats. for the former pres.
Parts of the lawyers’ submission called for the former president’s language and arguments, while his lawyers described Trump’s second indictment as a ‘constitutional cancellation culture’, while making numerous false allegations.
During the question-and-answer session, however, advocates did not want to say when Trump discovered that the Capitol was violated on January 6 and what he did to stop it.
Here are some important takeaways from day four of the trial.
The Trump defense
Trump’s legal team used only three of the 16 hours allotted to them to defend the former president, but it was chock-full of references and statements that reflected their client’s bombastic language.
The trial “is a constitutional cancellation culture. History will record this shameful attempt as a deliberate attempt by the Democratic Party to smear, censor and cancel not only President Trump, but also the 75 million Americans who voted for him. “, one of the attorneys, Michael T. van der Veen, told the Senate in his submission, which included other attacks on the Democrats.
“Like every other politically motivated witch hunt that the left has practiced in the past four years, this accusation is completely separate from the facts, the testimony and the interests of the American people,” Van der Veen said. According to him, the House Managers who are presenting the case are motivated by ‘political hatred’.
“House Democrats hate Donald Trump,” he added.
On other points, advocates defended Trump’s comments about ‘very good people on both sides’ of the deadly protests in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Trump’s January 2 call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, where the former president urged him to “find” the number of votes he needed to win the state.
Attorney Bruce Castor, like Trump, complained that the call that put Raffensperger under pressure to block the state’s already certified results was “secretly recorded.”
Referring to the Georgia call, which is being investigated by state election officials and the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, Castor said Trump’s actions were taken out of context and repeated one of Trump’s scrapped election fraud claims.
Castor also said Trump would not be able to incite the deadly uprising on January 6 at the Capitol because ‘President Trump is by no means the most pro-police, anti-mob president this country has ever seen. His real fans know it. He made this clear throughout his presidency. ‘
Van der Veen, meanwhile, seconded Trump’s claim that his speech on January 6 was entirely appropriate.
“No thinking person could seriously believe that the president’s speech on the Ellipse on January 6 was in any way an incitement to violence or insurgency. This proposal is, on the face of it, extremely absurd,” he told senators.
What did the president know, and when did he know it?
During the question-and-answer session, Castor could not answer a question from the Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska left when their client found out that his supporters had broken into the Capitol and what he was doing around the massacre.
Instead, he blamed that he was unable to answer the question about his own client’s actions.
“With the haste to bring this accusation, there has been absolutely no investigation into it,” Castor said. Asked if Trump was aware that Vice President Mike Pence was in danger from the mob when he sent a derogatory tweet about him, Van der Veen later said: “At no point was he informed that the vice president was in danger. is not.’
Home Manager Joaquin Castro noted that the building’s storm was broadcast live and that the Trump tweet came after Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., Told Trump by phone that Pence had just evacuated from the Senate floor.
General Manager Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Noted that Trump had rejected a request to testify to present his version of events.
Fight, fight, fight
House leaders have argued that Trump helped fuel the uprising at the Capitol by repeatedly using the word ‘fight’ in advance of his rally, including urging them to ‘fight like hell’ or ‘you’re going no longer have a country ‘. Van der Veen said that it was “ordinary political rhetoric that can hardly be distinguished from the language used by people across the political spectrum for hundreds of years.”
To prove their point, Trump’s team played a long, contextless video of Democrats saying the word ‘fight’ over the years.
The 11-minute cut Democrats spoke 238 times, according to an NBC News report.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Said Trump’s behavior is not like a typical politician’s call to fight for specific policies or issues.
“Donald Trump has been warned: ‘If you do not stop talking about a stolen election, people will be killed. “He was specifically warned about it,” Kaine said. “He kept talking about it, and a violent crowd attacked the Capitol and seven people were killed who would be alive today if he just followed their advice. That’s what I thought of the videos.”
Whataboutism
Van der Veen told senators about the ‘fight’ and other videos of the Democrats playing the legal team.
“I show you to note that all political speech must be protected,” he said. “I did not show you the speech to balance my client’s speech.”
But Trump attorneys have repeatedly compared Democrats’ previous statements to the president, including Raskin’s unsuccessful attempt to object during the 2017 election.
‘Mr. Trump’s words do not differ from the figurative speech used by each of the senators gathered here today. If it’s not about the words, but about the great lie of a stolen election, then why is Raskin’s House Manager not guilty? since trying to overthrow the 2016 election? The more the Home Managers speak, the more hypocrisy is revealed. Hypocrisy, “Van der Veen said.
He also compares Trump’s protests to Hillary Clinton’s much more limited court challenge in 2016. While Trump never conceded the election to President Joe Biden, Clinton conceded to Trump the day after the election.
Trump’s lawyers also played a video of Trump in which he said he supported ‘law and order’ and confronted and praised it to Democrats, including Biden, for peaceful protesters after the death of George Floyd. The video then cuts from a riot to the scene, which the Biden type has exposed.
Van der Veen then complained that the “House executives played manipulated, selectively edited parts of Mr. Trump’s speech.”