Former President Trump’s legal team tried to put Democrats on trial on Friday, repeatedly playing clips of his hot past rhetoric and accusing liberals of setting a new “dangerous double standard” when it comes to Trump.
Trump’s lawyers said the ex-president’s speech before the January 6 Capitol rebellion, where he told supporters to “fight like hell” was by no means an incitement to violence and they called each of the managers impeachment of the House and each Democratic senator for making similar statements.
“Each of you, and each of you,” David Schoen, a Trump lawyer, shouted at Democrats on camera at the end of an 11-minute video with clips of each saying “fight.”
“Okay. You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s a word that people use, but please stop the hypocrisy.”
Lawyer David Schoen speaks during Trump’s impeachment trial on Friday, February 12.
Friday was Trump’s first chance to mount a defense against the impeachment charge of “inciting insurrection” based on his actions and omissions surrounding the January 6 Capitol riot that killed five people, including a police officer from the Capitol.
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Trump’s legal team criticized the lawsuit as unconstitutional, “false impeachment” motivated by Democrats “hatred” for the former president. They said that Trump’s political speech is protected by the First Amendment.
His lawyers said it is “absurd” to think that Trump was trying to promote the insurrection on January 6 based on his rhetoric of that day and the long history of promoting “law and order” and denouncing the mob’s violence at his many other rallies. politicians.
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“No thinking person can seriously believe that the president’s speech on January 6 in the ellipse was in any way an incitement to violence or insurrection,” said Michael van der Veen, Trump’s lawyer. “The suggestion is evidently absurd in appearance. Nothing in the text could be interpreted as encouraging, condoning or encouraging illegal activities of any kind.”
Lawyer Michael T. Van Der Veen speaks during Trump’s impeachment trial on Friday, February 12.
Van der Veen added: “To say that the president somehow wished, desired or encouraged violent or lawless behavior is an absurd and monstrous lie.”
The defense team then made several lengthy video montages designed to embarrass Democrats and call for a “double standard”. Videos starring almost every prominent Democrat, including Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Encouraging liberals to harass Trump officials, and President Biden saying that if he were in high school again, he would go after the academy and ” would beat up “Trump.
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Schoen created one of the videos saying to the camera, “We need to show you some of your own words”.
The music videos also featured the accused speech of Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., Mayor Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., And Vice President Kamala Harris, where she mocked on the “Ellen” talk show that if she were stuck in an elevator with Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions so that one of us doesn’t “get out alive”.
Trump’s legal team argued that Democrats could be impeached under the new standard they are now trying to apply to Trump.
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“According to the standards of the Chamber’s impeachment article, each of these individuals should be censored retroactively, expelled, punished or banned for inciting violence by their supporters,” said van der Veen.
Democrats criticized the legal team’s focus on them as a distraction from Trump’s own conduct.
“What they are simply doing is trying to design a false and dangerous equivalence to distract Donald Trump by inviting and inciting the crowd and then failing his oath of office to protect the Capitol,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D- Conn. Capitol reporters on Friday.
After Trump’s defense team is finished, senators will have the opportunity to ask questions of lawyers on both sides.