David DePape, the Trump supporter who assaulted Paul Pelosi with a hammer, was found guilty last week on charges of assault and attempted kidnapping.
Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte on Monday dissected the defense that DePape tried to use to get himself acquitted and she said that its failure looks like an ominous omen for former President Donald Trump.
Essentially, argued Marcotte, DePape and his lawyers tried to plead "innocent by reason of stupidity" by emphasizing the fact that he fell into a right-wing conspiracy theory rabbit hole that led him to sincerely believe that the 2020 election was "stolen" from former President Donald Trump.
Marcotte then linked this to the defense that many legal experts expect Trump to make at his Washington D.C. trial on charges of trying to defraud the United States by illegally remaining in power after losing the election.
"Like DePape, Trump seems to be investing heavily in the 'I really believed it' defense," she explained. "In both the federal case and the Georgia RICO case related to Trump's January 2021 coup attempt, Trump's team has signaled that he may argue that he sincerely believed the election had been stolen. The hope here is to downgrade the long list of crimes in Trump's indictments to innocent mistakes made by a guy who just didn't know better."
The problem, though, is that juries have shown they just don't buy this kind of defense -- and not just in DePape's case.
"Both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers tried out a variation of this defense, arguing that they let their belief in ludicrous fantasies get the better of them during the Capitol riot," noted Marcott. "They were convicted. Indeed, many Jan. 6 insurrectionists have rolled out the 'well-meaning moron' argument at trial and, by and large, have found themselves headed to prison."
