The Democrats just released their legal brief for the impeachment trial of President Trump and it has some errors.
To start things off the brief claims, “No president had ever refused to accept an election result or defied the lawful processes for resolving electoral disputes. Until President Trump.”
That is not even close to being true.
In the 20th century era Democrats have challenged elections victories in 1969, 2011, 2005, and 2017.
Their own legal brief says, “Since the dawn of the republic, no enemy — foreign or domestic — had ever obstructed Congress’s counting of the votes… No president had ever refused to accept an election result or defied the lawful processes for resolving electoral disputes. Until President Trump.”
Don’t forget had President Trump won the election it was Hillary Clinton who very publicly said that if Biden loses he should reject the election results.
Democrats are also claiming that the President’s speech incited the crowd to storm the Capitol. However, we know thanks to court documents that bad actors had already infiltrated the Capitol building as those marching from the President’s speech arrived. The FBI has also reported that bad actors had been planning some sort of action for weeks.
In contrast President Trump’s attorney’s filed their brief to dismiss the charges against him.
“The Senate lacks jurisdiction to remove from office a man who does not hold office,” the filing states, calling the case “moot.” “In the alternative, the 45th President respectfully requests the Senate acquit him on the merits of the allegations raised in the article of impeachment.”
Trump’s attorneys state that the Senate has no constitutional authority to impeach a former president who is now a private citizen. They also point out that the House skipped all of the required hearings and only took a week to impeach the President.
“The House of Representatives deprived the 45th President of due process of law in rushing to issue the Article of Impeachment by ignoring it own procedures and precedents going back to the mid-19th century,” the filing states.
The brief also correctly states President Trump has the 1st Amendment right to express his opinion about the election results.
“It is admitted that President Trump addressed a crowd at the Capitol ellipse on January 6, 2021 as is his right under the First Amendment to the Constitution and expressed his opinion that the election results were suspect, as is contained in the full recording of the speech,” the brief says.
