Trump's lawyers will try to get him off with the 'Whataboutism Hall of Fame': CNN's Acosta

On CNN Thursday, correspondent Jim Acosta previewed the arguments that former President Donald Trump's attorneys are expected to make during their defense of his role in the Capitol invasion.

"I know you have some reporting on what the former president's legal team strategy is," said anchor Anderson Cooper. "What do you expect?"

"I think we can expect to see the Whataboutism Hall of Fame, Super Bowl tomorrow," said Acosta. "This is going to be a case where you're going to see the president's impeachment team go in there and essentially say, you know, you can't hold him responsible for saying things like 'fight like hell,' as he said on January 6th, because they're going to be pointing to some of these House Democratic impeachment managers who have used similar wording in the past. Of course, obviously there's no equivalence there. Those Democratic impeachment managers, when they've used that kind of rhetoric, did not spark an insurrection like former President Trump did. But they're going to attempt to make that argument."

"In addition to that, Anderson ... they're going to say there's no connection, no direct connection between the words that the president was using on January 6th and the actions of the rioters up on Capitol Hill," said Acosta. "Of course, the House impeachment managers showed video clip after video clip of some of those rioters, some of those insurrectionists saying, sometimes into their own phones, that they were doing the bidding of the former president."

"One thing I will tell you, Anderson, is it almost seems that the president's lawyers are trying to win points with brevity," added Acosta. "They are foreshadowing that this is going to be a brief presentation tomorrow. When I was speaking with Bruce Castor, one of the president's lawyers, earlier today, he said they were cutting their presentation as we speak to shorten it. So I think their approach at this point is less is more. Just trying to get everybody out of there in the hopes of maybe earning some votes that way."

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