Principal House impeachment manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Said that former President Trump’s lawyers’ argument that Trump was within First Amendment rights when he made allegations of electoral fraud is a “distraction” completely irrelevant “.
“The entire First Amendment smoke screen is a completely irrelevant distraction from the pattern of crimes and misdemeanors that govern a president who violated his oath,” Raskin, a constitutional lawyer, said in the Senate floor on Thursday.
“The incitement of a violent insurrection is not protected by freedom of expression,” he said.
“Now he argues that Congress is violating his freedom of expression rights when it was Donald Trump who incited an insurrectionary attack against us that interrupted the House and Senate plenary speech and debate during the peaceful transfer of power?”
Trump’s lawyers in their pre-trial petition on Monday argued that Trump’s false claims that the election was “stolen” were within his First Amendment rights, and he made no reference to physical violence.
IMPEACHMENT ARTICLE TRUMP LEGAL TEAM ARTICLE IS IN ‘CONSTITUTION’ VIOLATION ‘
“Mr. Trump spoke for approximately an hour and fifteen minutes. Of the more than 10,000 words spoken, Mr. Trump used the word ‘fight’ a little more than a handful of times and each time in the figurative sense that he has long been accepted in public speech by urging people to stand up and use their voices to be heard on matters important to them; it was not and could not be interpreted to encourage acts of violence, “says the document.
He continues: “Notably absent from his speech was any reference or incentive to an insurrection, a riot, criminal action or any acts of physical violence of any kind … Mr. Trump never made any express or implied mention of weapons, the need for weapons, or anything like that. Instead, he simply called the assembled to use their voices in a peaceful and patriotic way. “
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In addition to their First Amendment argument, Trump’s lawyers, Bruce Castor and Doug Schoen, in their defense starting on Friday will argue that the whole process is “unconstitutional, bad public policy and is setting a bad precedent for the nation” , Castor told Fox News.