Trump Lawyers Lay Out the Defense

Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday presented the defense they will lay out in the impeachment trial scheduled to begin next Tuesday.

They will argue that impeachment is unconstitutional in the case of a former president, and that the speech on January 6 did not directly lead to the attack at the Capitol building.

The team says that Trump never violated his oath of office, that at all times Donald J. Trump fully and faithfully executed his duties as the president of the United States and at all times acted to the best of his ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States while never engaging in any high crimes or misdemeanors.”

Trump’s attorneys also made the case that the president’s speech was protected under the First Amendment, even if the rioters violated the First Amendment with their deadly siege on the Capitol.

“If the First Amendment protected only speech the government deemed popular in current American culture, it would be no protection at all,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

Read the brief submitted to the Senate on Tuesday below.

Story at The Hill and New York Times

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