A notable change in how Donald Trump describes his state of mind following the 2020 presidential election caught the attention of two legal experts who believe the former president is trying out a new legal strategy – because he knows he's in big trouble.
In a column for the Bulwark, attorney Dennis Aftergut and Amherst College professor Austin Sarat pointed out that Trump's declarative "I won the election" now includes a qualifier that he believes will get him off the hook with prosecutors as the reality of his Washington D.C. indictment sinks in.
As they explained, Trump's assertion that he won the election is belied by evidence that he was advised that he had not. One witness stated the former president once admitted, "Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?"
With that in mind, Trump has started stressing that his belief that he'd won was opinion, rather than fact. He recently protested, "I believe I won that election by many, many votes, many, many hundreds of thousands of votes. That’s what I think," followed by, "That’s my opinion, and it’s a strong opinion. And I think it’s borne out by the facts, and we’ll see that.”
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As the two experts wrote, that likely won't fly in a courtroom either.
"Perhaps this is just another instance of Trump’s doing what the late philosopher Harry Frankfurt labeled 'bullsh----ng' – where the 'goal is not to report facts' but 'rather, to shape the beliefs and attitudes of his listeners in a certain way.'"
"Facts can be verified; opinions, in contrast, are neither true nor false. They are just expressions of feelings or beliefs. They tell us about a person’s state of mind. That’s why Trump, presumably on the advice of the lawyers preparing him for his upcoming criminal trials, is reframing what he said and did in the aftermath of the 2020 election," they wrote.
They added, "But the 'it was just my opinion' defense won’t work in court. And it signals doubt and weakness from a person who reportedly hates showing signs of vulnerability and who as a child was taught never to show it."
The authors wrote that "alternative facts or suddenly trumped-up claims about opinions won’t save him," and ultimately could come back to haunt him since he looks like he is changing his story.
"Trump’s change of tune will only have him looking even more like the untrustworthy person he is — the kind that juries do not hesitate to convict," they predicted.
