Trump's lawyers argue in pretrial brief that his January 6 rally speech 'was not and could not be construed to encourage acts of violence' at the Capitol
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Trump's lawyers submitted a pretrial brief Monday ahead of his impeachment trial.
They argued that Trump's words at his January 6 rally are protected free speech.
"The real truth is that the people who criminally breached the Capitol did so of their own accord and for their own reasons," the brief said in part.
Lawyers representing former President Donald Trump filed a pretrial brief Monday reiterating their claim that his impeachment trial is unconstitutional and that his words at a rally preceding the January 6 Capitol siege are protected free speech.
They also argued that the House managers who will act as prosecutors in Trump's trial "cherry-picked" the former president's statements when they accused him of inciting the violent insurrection by urging supporters to march to the Capitol and "fight like hell" against the 2020 election results.
In their pretrial brief, Trump's defense lawyers said he had only "used the word 'fight' a little more than a handful of times and each time in the figurative sense."
"It was not and could not be construed to encourage acts of violence," they wrote. The brief went on to say that "the real truth is that the people who criminally breached the Capitol did so of their own accord and for their own reasons, and they are being criminally prosecuted."
Lawyers representing the insurrectionists, meanwhile, have argued that their clients were acting specifically on Trump's orders.
"Let's roll the tape," Al Watkins, the defense attorney representing Jacob Chansley or the "QAnon Shaman," told a local NBC affiliate in Missouri last month. Chansley was arrested and charged with multiple felony counts, including unlawfully entering the Capitol and engaging in disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
"Let's roll the months of lies and misrepresentations and horrific innuendo and hyperbolic speech by our president designed to inflame, enrage, motivate," Watkins added. Chansley later offered to testify against Trump at his impeachment trial.
In their pretrial brief, Trump's lawyers equated the former president's call for his supporters to "fight" the election results with Fair Fight Action, a voting-rights organization founded by the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
"Democrats cannot pretend that they were confused by the word 'fight' in the context President Trump used it in his speech," the brief said. "Speaker Pelosi has used this word multiple times herself in the context of election security,21 and the well-known nonprofit started by rising Democratic darling Stacey Abrams and endorsed by none other than Speaker Pelosi is literally called 'Fair Fight,' and it asks people to join the 'fight for free and fair elections.'"
"Words do matter and the words of President Trump's January 6th speech speak for themselves. President Trump did not direct anyone to commit lawless actions, and the claim that he could be responsible" for the insurrection "is simply absurd," the brief continued.
Trump has drawn sharp backlash for peddling lies and conspiracy theories about the election for months leading up to the Jahuary 6 siege. He spread baseless claims of widespread, nationwide voter fraud and election-rigging, all of which were debunked by courts across the country from the local level all the way up to the Supreme Court.
House managers alluded to Trump's actions in a statement when they filed their pretrial brief last week.
"The facts are compelling and the evidence is overwhelming. After months of spreading his Big Lie that he won a landslide victory in the 2020 election, leading up to and on January 6, 2021, President Trump summoned, assembled and incited a violent mob that attacked the Capitol, cost the lives of three police officers and four other people, threatened the Vice-President and Congress, and successfully halted the counting of the Electoral College vote," the statement said.
It went to say that Trump's "responsibility" in inciting the insurrection was "unmistakable" and that the Senate had a "clear and unavoidable" constitutional duty to hear the case against him.
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