Donald Trump to argue Dems used violent language too

Donald Trump’s lawyers will play videos of Democrats calling for ‘unrest’ during BLM protests to defend his speech to supporters.

Donald Trump’s impeachment trial starts on February 10 (AEDT). Picture: AFP.

Lawyers for Donald Trump’s impeachment trial claim that they will highlight the “many” times that Democrats used language that could stir up violence.

Bruce Castor, Trump’s lead impeachment lawyer, said that he would play videos of Democrats calling for “unrest” during Black Lives Matter protests last summer. Castor said he would use the clips to defend Trump’s speech to supporters who invaded the Capitol.

“There’s an awful lot of tape of cities burning and court houses being attacked … cheered on by Democrats,” he said. “And many in Washington.”

Republican senators dismissed any chance of a guilty verdict in the former president’s second impeachment trial that opens on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT). Liz Cheney, a senior Republican in the House, maintained that “people have been lied to” and Trump was the “single greatest threat to our republic”.

She was one of few senior Republicans prepared to speak out against Trump before his Senate trial. The Washington Post has said that a review of legal and security bills found that Trump’s false election fraud claims have cost the country half a billion dollars. Local, state and federal spending came to dollars 519 million, including failed court cases challenging the election brought by Trump and his supporters as well as the cost of repairs to the Capitol after the riot last month.

Rand Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky who brought a motion to have the trial declared unconstitutional, said that the trial was “over before it starts”. A two-thirds majority of the 100 senators is required for a conviction but 45 of them joined Paul’s motion, suggesting that they will also vote to acquit.

He told Fox News: “Are we going to impeach and potentially criminally prosecute people for political speech when they say: ‘Get up and fight for your country’? Has nobody … heard of figurative speech?”

In a sign of the deep tensions in Republican ranks, Cheney, 54, was censured by her home party. She was called on to resign for “betraying the trust of Wyoming voters” by voting for impeachment last month on the charge of incitement of insurrection.

She rejected the resignation calls, insisting that “we need to make sure that we as Republicans are the party of truth” by countering the lie that the election was rigged.

Cheney added: “Somebody who has provoked an attack on the US Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral votes, which resulted in five people dying … that is a person who does not have a role as a leader of our party going forward.”

An analysis by The Atlantic magazine found that of the 193 suspects so far arrested and charged with invading the Capitol on January 6, 89 per cent had no obvious link to far-right groups.

“Unlike the stereotypical extremist, many of the alleged participants in the Capitol riot have a lot to lose,” it said. “They work as CEOs, shop owners, doctors, lawyers.”

The White House has clarified that the final decision on banning Trump from receiving classified intelligence briefings would rest with President Biden’s national security team. Biden told CBS he did not think Trump should have access to top-secret information because of “erratic behaviour”.

The Times