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Trump’s Lawyers Deny He Incited the Capitol Riots in Brief Responding to Articles of Impeachment

Rohini Kurup
Tuesday, February 2, 2021, 1:49 PM

The former president’s lawyers push back on the House managers’ claim that Trump incited the Jan. 6 insurrection at the capitol and argued that the Senate has no authority to try a former president.

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
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Hours after the House impeachment managers filed an impeachment brief on Feb. 2, making their case for the Senate to convict former President Trump, Trump’s lawyers submitted their first response to the articles of impeachment. In their 14-page brief, the former president’s lawyers push back on the House managers’ claim that Trump incited the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, claiming that his allegations of voter fraud were protected under the First Amendment, and argued that the Senate has no authority to try a former president. The brief also disputes that Trump’s claims of voter fraud were false, despite widespread evidence to the contrary. “Insufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable jurist could conclude that the 45th President’s statements were accurate or not, and he therefore denies they were false,” the brief states.

The brief can be found here and below:


Rohini Kurup is a J.D. candidate at the University of Virginia School of Law. Prior to law school, she worked as an associate editor of Lawfare and a research analyst at the Brookings Institution. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College.

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