“This was just a self-made attempt by Democratic leadership in the House to plunder the horrific and upsetting feelings that fell on Americans across the entire political spectrum when a few hundred people witnessed the devastation at the Capitol on Jan. 6, “Trump’s lawyers wrote in a second pretrial summary filed Monday.
“Instead of working to heal the country, or at least focus on prosecuting the captors who stormed the Capitol, the Speaker of the House and her friends have tried to riot currently used for their own political gain, ”the states briefly.
House managers will have a chance to push back on Trump’s latest round of pretrial arguments.
“The evidence on President Trump’s behavior is appalling. He has no legitimate apology or defense for what he has done. And his attempts to escape accountability are completely futile,” House managers are writing. “As was accused in the impeachment article, President Trump broke his Oath of Office and betrayed the American people. It was to incite a revolt against the United States government – which disturbed a peaceful movement power – the worst constitutional crime a president has ever committed. “
The five-page House minute from Monday states that Trump can stand trial in the Senate for a crime he committed while in office. “Leaders swear an oath of allegiance that binds them from the first day in office during their last day,” Democrats write.
Trump’s lawyers say ‘fight as hell’ ideas were not literal
In particular, the summary recorded on Monday alleges that Trump urged those gathered on Jan. 6 to be peaceful and argues that his call for the public “did not fight as hell, ”to be taken literally.
“And unless you fight like hell, you will no longer have a country,” Trump said at the time.
“Out of the 10,000 words spoken, Mr. Trump used the word ‘fight’ just over a handful of times and each time in the figurative sense that has long been accepted in public communication when it urged people to stand up and use their voices to be heard about issues that matter to them; it was not and could not be explained to incite acts of violence, ”Trump’s lawyers wrote.
“Marking this statement in its own right as an ‘uprising to revolution’ is the avoidance, wholesale, of the rest of Mr Trump’s speech that day, including his call for its supporters to ‘peacefully’ make their voices, “he said.
Trump’s lawyers are also seeking to remove the former president from those who committed acts of violence on Jan. 6 by saying that they did so of their own free will. “
“The reality is that the people who broke the Capitol criminally committed themselves and for their own reasons, and are being criminally prosecuted,” he wrote.
Impeachment managers have accused Trump’s actions in the months up to Jan. 6 of stealing the election from him that created the conditions for a violent mob to aim “like a cannon loaded down Pennsylvania Avenue” to attack on the Capitol.
“President Trump created a powder keg on Jan. 6. Hundreds were prepared for the violence of the leadership. They were willing to do anything to keep it in power,” managers wrote. “All they had to hear was that their President had to fight like hell. ‘All they need is for President Trump to go on strike.”
On Monday, House Democrats pushed back on Trump’s legal team’s argument that Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen from him were defended by the First Amendment and could not be proven wrong.
“President Trump’s remarks about ‘rigged’ elections and ‘theft’ were false, no matter how many contradictions his lawyers undertake so you don’t say so,” the management of House.
This story was updated with further improvements Monday.