Source:
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/trump-legal-allies-trump-team-should-avoid-trap-presenting
"House impeachment managers Tuesday cited Trump statements challenging the integrity of the 2020 election in arguing that the former president engaged in a "months-long effort to incite" an "insurrection" ...
... Some Trump allies say his electoral fraud case has never received a full public airing due to legal challenges being tossed out on grounds of standing, timeliness and other technical issues rather than on merit.
... former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz ... said:
.. "It's a trap to have them talk about electoral fraud, because if they do, they'll lose [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell and other senators."
The "absolute trap," Dershowitz said, was being set by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who is leading the Democrats' impeachment case. Raskin studied law under Dershowitz, who called his former student "a smart guy."
... five of Trump's defense attorneys departed the case ... Johnny Gasser, Greg Harris, Butch Bowers, Deborah Barbier and Josh Howard opted out because Trump preferred that his legal team make the case that the election was stolen through massive fraud instead of focusing on the constitutionality of a Senate trial of a private citizen.
Attorney Phill Kline, a Trump supporter and director of the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society (said):
... "This is not the forum in which any evidence of election fraud is going to be seriously considered.
They refuse to acknowledge clear facts.
And so it's the wrong audience and the wrong time."
Kline said the Trump defense team should focus on the former president's First Amendment right to speak openly and raise questions about election fraud.
"They have been trying to criminalize thought for some time now," Kline said.
... Kevin Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI told Just the News that Trump has not been prosecuted by the FBI for incitement because his words on Jan. 6 did not meet that legal definition.
For speech to meet the threshold of incitement, a speaker must, first, indicate a desire for violence and, second, demonstrate a capability or reasonable indication of capability to carry out the violence, according to Brock.
... "I didn't hear a single word about — or anything that would trigger a reasonable person to believe that he was inciting — violence," he said.
"He (Trump) even used the words 'peaceful' and 'respectful.'"
... Democrats didn't use the entire Jan. 6 speech by Trump.
... "They haven't played the clips of President Trump saying, 'Be peaceful, patriotic.'"
Asked about the Trump legal team, Stacy Washington, co-chair of the 2020 Black Voices For Trump committee, said, "It's difficult to get good help when your personal life is threatened and your family is threatened."
Any prospective Trump lawyer faced the the threat of professional blackballing, "where they're literally told, 'You take cases with the president, you'll never work again,'" Washington said.
"So the president has the best legal team that he was able to get under the circumstances. And I think they did pretty well." "
