Donald Trump's lawyers have hung their defense of his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection on a line from his speech at the "Stop the Steal" rally at the Ellipse, but a trio of legal experts say the broader record of his statements and actions undermines that argument.
The former claimed last month during a speech that his supporters had acted "peacefully and patriotically," echoing that key line from his speech that his attorneys have made a centerpiece of his defense since his post-Jan. 6 impeachment, but abundant evidence shows they did not and he didn't want them to, wrote legal experts Tom Joscelyn, Norman L. Eisen and Fred Wertheimer for Just Security.
"We expect prosecutors will explain to the jurors why the sentence in the Ellipse speech is, in actuality, more incriminating than exculpatory when understood in context," they wrote. "Indeed, evidence uncovered by the January 6th Select Committee shows that Trump deliberately and repeatedly implored his followers to 'fight' – and was reticent to use the word 'peaceful' at all. Recent revelations of evidence gathered by Special Counsel Jack Smith will also help prove the case."
READ MORE: Prison president: How Donald Trump could serve from behind bars
The authors lay out a detailed and damning compendium of Trump's public statements and behind-the-scenes evidence uncovered by prosecutors and the House select committee that shows White House officials, outside allies and family members begged the former president to call off his supporters once the violence erupted, but he refused for hours.
"It was not until 4:17 p.m. that Trump released a video telling his supporters they needed to go home and '[w]e have to have peace' – a command that many rioters quickly obeyed," the authors wrote. "In that video, however, Trump openly sympathized with the rioters’ cause, telling them: 'I know your pain, I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us.'"
Even more potentially damning is a statement he posted on Twitter at 6:01 p.m., in which he justified their actions, saying, "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away."
That statement could undermine his U.S. Supreme Court appeal to a Colorado ruling to disqualify him under the Constitution's insurrection clause, and it could be used as evidence in special counsel Jack Smith's election subversion case.
"Smith may also use this statement as an admission by Trump that the assault on the Capitol was a foreseeable consequence of telling the mob that his landslide victory had been stolen from them," the authors pointed out. “'Remember this day forever!' Trump wrote."
