AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack
- Trump's lawyers took a page from prosecutors and dug up his social media posts in a court filing.
- Prosecutors used Trump's tweets to allege he illegally tried to overturn the 2020 election results.
- Defense lawyers used his posts to allege that prosecutors cherry-picked from Trump's statements.
Donald Trump's lawyers took a page out of the federal prosecutors' playbook and included his social media posts in a new court filing.
The difference? While prosecutors use Trump's old tweets against him, his lawyers pointed to them to say that the special counsel Jack Smith's January 6 case against Trump should be tossed out.
Prosecutors last month pulled Trump's tweets dating back to 2012 to convince a jury of Trump's peers that he engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the US and illegally overturn the 2020 election results.
This week, Trump's lawyers dug up his tweets and Truth Social posts to make the case that prosecutors were cherry-picking from the former president's statements.
They pointed to a speech Trump made shortly before the January 6 riot, in which he called on the crowd to "peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard" and "cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women."
(He also encouraged the crowd to "fight like hell" to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election victory, adding, "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.")
"He stated on social media that protesters should 'remain peaceful' and '[s]tay peaceful,'" defense lawyers wrote, referring to a tweet he posted as the riot unfolded. They also pointed to a tweet where Trump told his supporters "to go home now."
Trump's lawyers accused prosecutors of omitting "vigorous disputes and questions" about the election, which "are based on extensive information about widespread fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election."
They cited, as proof, a Truth Social post in which Trump shared a report sourced to right-wing and far-right media outlets alleging widespread fraud in the election.
Bipartisan election and cybersecurity experts, as well as Trump's own government officials, have said that no such fraud took place.