Republican strategist Karl Rove
Karl Christian RoveKarl Rove mourns with Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell about electoral claims The Hill’s Morning Report – Presented by Mastercard – Dem leaders support minor relief project for COVID-19 as pandemic grows More conservatives break with Trump over election claims MORE suggested on Sunday that President Trump
Donald TrumpFacebook temporarily bans ads for weapon accessories after the riots at Sasse Capitol, in a burning opinion article, says QAnon is destroying GOP Section 230 worked on after the insurrection, but not before: How to regulate social media MORE is at greater risk of the Senate voting to convict him in his second impeachment trial if his lawyer Rudy Giuliani
Rudy GiulianiWhat our children should know after the Capitol rebellion How to prevent Trump’s secret pardons Trump tells advisers not to pay Giuliani’s legal fees: report MORE leads your defense.
Rove said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday that the Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell
Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellBoebert communications director resigns amid Capitol riots: Urgency report escalates to new Senate Democratic voting rights bill suspicious of preventing obstruction MORE(R-Ky.) ‘S statements about the trial, in which he did not instruct Senate Republicans to vote against the conviction, are “a sign that every Republican senator needs to take this seriously.”
“I think it will all come down to the defense of the president,” added Rove.
“Rudy Giuliani set a very bad course in the morning papers,” said Rove, pointing to comments by the lawyer suggesting that the president could not have incited the deadly riots at the Capitol earlier this month because his unproven allegations of electoral theft were true. The House last week accused Trump of his role in the riots, making him the only president to be charged twice.
The electoral fraud argument, Rove noted on Sunday, “was rejected by more than 50 courts”, including some nominated by Trump.
A defense by Giuliani, he added, “increases the likelihood of more than 17 Republicans voting for the conviction.”
Giuliani also told ABC News that he is working on defending Trump’s impeachment and that the president could not have incited the crowds because they did not immediately march on Capitol after his speech at a rally.
“You would have to have people running. You would have to have people running out of that frozen speech to the Capitol, and that is basically an incitement, ”he said.
The former mayor of New York spoke at the same rally and called for “trial by combat”.
“I am willing to bet my reputation, the president is willing to bet his reputation, on the fact that we will encounter criminality [in the election]”he said at the time.
Speaking to Brett Samuels of The Hill last week, Giuliani insisted that the term was a reference to the HBO series “Game of Thrones” and not a literal invocation of violence.