One key argument apparently will be that the former president couldn’t possibly have been savvy enough to know he was spouting nonsense.
One luxury of being a politician is you can pick your spots and comment on what you want, however broadly or narrowly. So when Donald Trump’s indictment over Jan. 6, 2021, landed, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence issued brief statements that avoided the substance of the case and promised to offer more later — when they could decide how they wanted to play it.
Not everyone has that luxury. Some people, like Trump’s lawyers, have to actually defend the former president or fill 60 minutes of airtime without the benefit of reflection.
And those people have offered some remarkable defenses of Trump.
The arguments often boil down to this being a case of a former leader of the free world who simply didn’t know any better — even while lodging claims of massive voter fraud and trying to overturn a democratic election.
In the hours after the indictment landed, this approach was couched; those who promoted it seemed careful to suggest only that Trump believed the things he was saying. Mostly, his defenders themselves conspicuously declined to back up Trump’s wild claims — many of which were laughable even 31 months ago.
Trump lawyer John Lauro set about making such an argument Tuesday night on Fox News.
“I would like them to try to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump believed that these allegations were false,” Lauro said.
