Former President Donald Trump’s attorneys made a belligerent, though brief, presentation of defense at his impeachment trial on Friday, saying his speech before the Capitol rebellion was “common political rhetoric” and accusing the proceedings of “farce” fueled by the Democrats’ “political hatred” for the former president.
Parts of the lawyers’ presentation invoked the ex-president’s language and arguments, with his lawyers claiming that Trump’s second impeachment trial is “constitutional cancellation culture” while making several false claims.
During the question and answer session, however, lawyers did not say when Trump found out that the Capitol had been breached on January 6 and what, if anything, he did to stop it.
Here are some important lessons from the fourth day of the trial.
The Trump defense
Trump’s legal team used only three of the 16 hours assigned to them for the defense of the former president, but it was filled with references and statements that echoed his client’s bombastic language.
The trial “is a constitutional culture of cancellation. History will record this shameful effort as a deliberate attempt by the Democratic Party to defame, censor and cancel, not just President Trump, but the 75 million Americans who voted for him,” one of the lawyers , Michael T. van der Veen, told the Senate in his presentation, which included other attacks on Democrats.
“Like any other politically motivated witch hunt that the Left has been involved in over the past four years, this impeachment is completely divorced from the facts, evidence and interests of the American people,” said van der Veen. House managers who present the case, he said, are motivated by “political hatred”.
“House Democrats hate Donald Trump,” he added.
Elsewhere, lawyers defended Trump’s comments about “very good people on both sides” of the 2017 deadly protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Trump’s phone call on January 2 with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger , where the ex-president encouraged him to “find” the number of votes he needs to win the state
Lawyer Bruce Castor complained, as did Trump, that the call that was pressing Raffensperger to overturn the state’s already certified results was “secretly recorded.”
Referring to Georgia’s summons, which is being investigated by state election officials and the Fulton County Public Ministry, Castor said that Trump’s actions were taken out of context and repeated one of the electoral fraud charges unmasked as fact.
Castor also said that Trump could not have incited the January 6 deadly riot on Capitol Hill because “by any measure, President Trump is the most pro-police and anti-mafia president this country has ever seen. His true supporters know this. He made that clear throughout his presidency. “
Van der Veen, for his part, supported Trump’s claim that his January 6 speech was entirely appropriate.
“No thinking person could seriously believe that the president’s speech on January 6 about Elipse was in any way an incitement to violence or insurrection. This suggestion is obviously absurd,” he told the senators.
What did the president know and when did he know?
During the question and answer session, Castor was unable to answer a Republican Sens question. Susan Collins from Maine and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska about when her client found out that her supporters had invaded the Capitol and what he did to stop the carnage.
Instead, he blamed his inability to answer the question about his own client’s actions on Democrats’ rapid impeachment movement.
“In the rush to bring about this impeachment, there has been absolutely no investigation into it,” said Castor. Asked if Trump knew that Vice President Mike Pence was in danger because of the crowd at the time he sent a derogatory tweet about him, van der Veen said later: “At no time was he informed that the Vice President was in danger.”
The house manager, Joaquin Castro, noted that the attack on the building was broadcast live and that Trump’s tweet came after Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., Told Trump over the phone that Pence had just left the Senate.
Chief manager Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Noted that Trump declined a request to testify to present his version of events.
Fight fight Fight
House managers argued that Trump helped incite the Capitol riot by repeatedly using the word “fight” in his previous rally, including urging them to “fight like the devil” or “you will no longer have a country”. Van der Veen said it was “common political rhetoric that is virtually indistinguishable from the language that has been used by people across the political spectrum for hundreds of years”.
To prove their point, the Trump team showed a long, contextless video of Democrats saying the word “fight” over the years.
THE 11-minute clip showed democrats expressing the word 238 times, according to a count by NBC News.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Said that Trump’s pattern of behavior was different from the typical politician’s call to fight for specific policies or issues.
“Donald Trump was warned: ‘If you don’t stop talking about a stolen election, people will be killed.’ He was specifically warned of this, “said Kaine.” He kept talking about it, and a violent crowd attacked the Capitol and seven people who would be alive today if he had followed their advice are dead. That’s what I thought about these videos. “
What about
“This is not what motoring is about,” van der Veen told senators about the “fight” and other videos of the Democrats that the legal team played.
“I am showing this to make it clear that every political speech must be protected,” he said. “I didn’t show you the speech to balance my client’s speech.”
But Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly compared Democrats’ previous statements to those of the president, including Raskin’s unsuccessful attempt to object during the 2017 electoral vote count.
“Mr. Trump’s words are no different from the figurative speech used by each of the senators gathered here today. If it is not about the words, but about the big lie of a stolen election, then why is the Raskin House manager not guilty since he tried to overthrow the 2016 election? The more the House administrators talk, the more hypocrisy is revealed. Hypocrisy, “said van der Veen.
He also compared Trump’s protests to Hillary Clinton’s much more limited challenge in court in 2016. Although Trump never granted the election to President Joe Biden, Clinton conceded to Trump the day after the election.
Trump’s lawyers also showed a video of Trump saying he supports “law and order” and compared it to Democrats, including Biden, praising peaceful protesters after George Floyd’s death. The video then cut to a scene of a riot, the kind that Biden denounced.
Van der Veen then complained that “House administrators interpreted manipulated and selectively edited parts of Mr. Trump’s speech”.