Attorneys for former President Donald Trump on Tuesday denied that their client incited last month’s riot at the U.S. Capitol or sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential race, insisting instead that Trump was merely exercising his First Amendment rights with baseless claims of voter fraud.
“It is denied that the 45th President of the United States ever engaged in a violation of his oath of office,” the Trump legal team brief says. “To the contrary, at all times, Donald J. Trump fully and faithfully executed his duties as President of the United States, and at all times acted to the best of his ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, while never engaging in any high Crimes or Misdemeanors.”
The former president “exercised his First Amendment right under the Constitution to express his belief that the election results were suspect,” Trump’s lawyers wrote, “since with very few exceptions, under the convenient guise of Covid-19 pandemic ‘safeguards’ states election laws and procedures were changed by local politicians or judges without the necessary approvals from state legislatures.”
Trump’s legal team also argues that a Senate trial against him would be unconstitutional.
“Donald John Trump, 45th President of the United States respectfully requests the Honorable Members of the Senate of the United States dismiss Article I: Incitement of Insurrection against him as moot, and thus in violation of the Constitution, because the Senate lacks jurisdiction to remove from office a man who does not hold office,” the brief says. “In the alternative, the 45th President respectfully requests the Senate acquit him on the merits of the allegations raised in the article of impeachment.”
The brief also doubles down on the false claims that Trump won the election in the brief.
“To the extent Averment 5 alleges his opinion is factually in error, the 45th President denies this allegation,” the brief reads, referencing the House’s allegation that Trump at his Jan. 6 rally “reiterated false claims that ‘we won this election, and we won it by a landslide.'”
“Insufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable jurist could conclude that the 45th President’s statements were accurate or not, and he therefore denies they were false,” the brief also says.
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8 Responses
The first amendment isn’t a great defense, because a president can be removed for speech that is protected. He can’t be tried for it in a criminal court, but impeachment is a political process, not a criminal one, so it’s not bound by the bill of rights.
But here the defense is not that his speech was protected, it’s that he did nothing wrong. It’s invoking the first amendment to remind people that he was entitled to say the things he did.
The brief also doubles down on the false claims that Trump won the election in the brief.
Sigh. As the defense correctly says, you can’t prove they’re false.
They’ve tried everything else. Why not an insanity defense. “All of my advisors were suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome” and kept advising me to accept the outcome of the election and work towards a peaceful transtion”.
Former President Donald John Trump, we love you! Go get ’em!
Oy vey, oh no, maybe my above comment was seditious… {tremble, tremble, nibbling at my nails}… Yup, I probably meant that he should go to the Capitol, smash down its windows, attempt to capture/kill congresspeople, overthrow the god damn government of the United States…
GET A GRIP, YOU DUMB DEMMIES!
#Trump_Pence_2024 and then #Pence_Haley_2028
“you can’t prove they’re false”
Actually it has been proven, in over 60 courts of law.
@charliehall: Okay, whoa! Of all the #nevertrumpers on YWN, you actually say intelligent statements most of the time. So why the lies? The claims were absolutely not proven false in over 60 courts; you know that. They were mostly tossed out on procedural and technical grounds. I’m not saying I do or don’t think the claims are true, however, let’s talk straight over here.
> charliehall
> Actually it has been proven, in over 60 courts of law.
Just what was proven in those alleged “60 courts”? The courts simply refused to grant the supplicants subpoena to allow them to examine anything – not computers and not paper ballots.