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In the preliminary brief that they presented today, Donald Trump’s new attorneys said that part of their defense will be based on Trump’s belief that he actually won the November election. As reported in Politico:
Trump’s lawyers, Bruce Castor and David Schoen, also advanced the former president’s false claims that the election results were “suspect,” asserting that Trump has a First Amendment right to express that view.
“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,” Castor and Schoen wrote, adding that Trump “denies” it is false to say he won the election “in a landslide.”
Other attorneys might have pointed out to Trump that his insistence, against all evidence, that he won the election, and his having urged his followers on January 6th to act on that belief, might actually make the case for the prosecution.
The Prospect has learned, however, that the election is only one issue that Trump wants to relitigate in his upcoming Senate trial. He will also seek to prove to the assembled senators that:
- Barack Obama was born in Kenya.
- Hillary Clinton (though not Ivanka Trump) committed capital offenses in using her personal email for business.
- The Central Park Five were actually guilty.
- The Affordable Care Act needs to be immediately repealed.
Should none of these arguments be permitted into evidence by Senate President Pro Tem Patrick Leahy, or should they fail to sway the senators, the Prospect has also learned that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) will step forward to reprise his presentation for the prosecution in the 1998 Senate trial of President Clinton, in which Graham was one of the House prosecutors. “It was a pretty good speech, if I say so myself,” Graham told us.
