'The Regardless Defense'

REPORT: Donald Trump’s defense will be that he had no “corrupt or criminal intent.” Everything he 'did' to contest the 2020 election was core, protected, political First Amendment speech.

(Trump defense attorney John Lauro)

Donald Trump had “no corrupt or criminal intent.”  That according to John Lauro, the defense attorney representing former president Donald Trump in his conspiracy case. Lauro was on all the Sunday morning network news programs, beginning his legal arguments.

Trump’s defense will be that everything he did in contesting the 2020 presidential election was lawful, innocent and right.  To my ears, the defense Lauro presented in the media was weak; an attempt to distract & deflect from Trump’s criminal actions by focusing instead on Trump’s thinking.

What Lauro outlined to the network anchors went mostly to Trump’s ‘innocent’ state of mind; his ‘legal’ right to refuse to concede what Trump believed was a corrupt election loss; the ‘advice of counsel’ which justified his legal and political challenges; and his ‘persecution and prosecution’ by his political rivals.

It seems, for now, Trump and his legal team are going to use what I am coining as ‘the regardless defense.”

The modus operandi of Donald J. Trump has always been that whatever he has done, for whatever reason he has done it, no matter the laws or norms, has always been lawful, innocent and right.

That is, lawful, innocent and right, regardless of fake stories, fake allegations, fake charges, fake accusations, fake investigations, fake indictments, fake law suits, fake impeachments, fake trials, fake persecutions, fake prosecutions or (soon to be) fake convictions & fake sentences. It’s all fake, Trump proclaims boldly & incessantly. The Teflon Don didn’t do it.  And if he did do it, it was ok to do.  Regardless.

To wit, the defense case, as outlined by John Lauro:

First Amendment

Trump had a First Amendment right to say whatever he wanted to say, regardless of its truth.

Right to Object

President Trump had a legal right to investigate allegations of election fraud and to encourage others to do the same, regardless of whether there was justification, legal standing, merit or proof.

State of Mind

In seeking to challenge the results of the election, Trump believed in his “heart of hearts” that the election had been stolen, regardless of being told otherwise by officials & allies, and that he had no criminal or corrupt intent, regardless of his actions.

Advice of Counsel

Trump was following the advice of a “renowned legal scholar” that it was legal and appropriate to challenge the slates of electors chosen by states where he believed the election was corrupt, regardless of a plethora of declarations and proof to the contrary.

So, all of this defense goes to Trump’s ‘state of mind’ in seeking to challenge the results of an election that he believed to have been illegitimate. Again, as Lauro noted, in Trump’s “heart of hearts.”

What none of these defenses directly address are the charges that Trump willfully, knowingly, aggressively and fraudulently instigated and engaged in an active conspiracy to use intentional lies to deceive the citizens of the United States and overturn their will in electing President Joe Biden.  It is Trump’s fraudulent actions in that conspiracy to deceive that is at the heart of his criminality.

It is worth watching the pre-trial justification and likely defense presented by Trump’s attorney as a critical foundational understanding of what might be the most important and consequential trial of this century for American democracy.

This Week (ABC News - George Stephanopoulos)

https://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/1-1-john-lauro-102054360

Face the Nation  (CBS News - Major Garrett)

Meet the Press  (NBC News - Chuck Todd)

State of the Union (CNN - Dana Bash)

(Editorial Note:  I am not a fan of Dana Bash.  She spent her twelve-minute interview with Lauro trying to correct him with so-called ‘gotcha’ interruptions, instead of listening and learning what the defense strategy might be.  She thought it best to argue the prosecution case.  I learned little to nothing from Dash’s ‘journalistic’ confrontational sparring.)

FOX News Sunday (FOX - Shannon Bream)

(Editorial Note:  I don’t watch the deceptive FOX News. But, I was curious on how they would treat this interview. Well, FOX anchor Shannon Bream did what FOX anchors do. She presented the story, not as an exercise in fact-finding, but as setting up typical right-wing propaganda. In this case, Lauro was given unchallenged free rein to launch a clearly political attack on the “Biden administration.” But, I did learn the most about his strategy from this conversation.)

And that’s another thing to note and take away from these initial media appearances by John Lauro: His repeated political spin.  He rarely refers to the government, the Justice Department, the investigators, the prosecutors or the grand juries as the instigators of this felony case.  Instead, he deliberately and consistently (and untruthfully) refers to the “Biden administration” as bringing the indictments.  That is meant to play into the political campaign distortion from Trump and Republicans (and the gullible MAGA cult) that all this is a continuation of the ‘persecution’ of the ‘leading presidential candidate’ by his ‘deranged opposition.’  

Of course the fact is that President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland are both hands-off this investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith.  Trump knows that.  Lauro knows that.  And Republicans know that.  That doesn’t stop any of them from trying to deceive the electorate that this is a ‘political witch hunt. And the MAGA mob buys into the lies.

So, the essence of Trump’s defense will be that he didn’t ‘do’ anything. He ‘petitioned.’ He ‘asked.’ He ‘requested.’ All core, protected, political, First Amendment speech, according to lawyer Lauro, which he says, “is being attacked under the Biden plan.”

It’s the latest Trump con. Because everything about Donald John Trump is about the con. And the cult believes him. In their “heart of hearts.”

Regardless of the truth.