Jack Smith was 'very smart' not to charge Trump with inciting riot: former Trump adviser

Former Trump campaign adviser David Urban told CNN on Friday that special counsel Jack Smith was very wise to not charge former President Donald Trump with inciting the January 6th riots at the United States Capitol building.

In breaking down the indictment, Urban argued that it might be tempting to charge Trump with inciting the riot given that videos of people storming the Capitol are very powerful and difficult to defend.

CNN anchor Phil Mattingly pointed out that it might be difficult to get such a charge to stick given that "you can't really read Trump's mind" about whether he wanted violence to break out when he encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol.

"Jack Smith's a very smart prosecutor, knows what he can and can't charge, what he could get a conviction on," Urban said in response. "The worst thing is to take a swing at the former president and not be able to land a punch. I think that they felt that if they charged something on January 6th, there would be a much higher bar, a much longer road to get there."

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That said, Urban also believed that making the case about Trump's efforts to exert pressure on elected officials to throw out election results and to send paperwork filled out by fraudulent pro-Trump electors posed a risk, given that such matters don't have the same visceral emotional impact that videos of the riot have.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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