Lawyers: Trump didn't incite riot, trial unconstitutional

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s lawyers denied Tuesday that he played a role in inciting the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol and said that the Senate impeachment trial is unconstitutional.

The lawyers filed their brief ahead of next week’s trial on accusations that he provoked the siege of the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol through his efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election.

In a brief filed earlier in the day, Democrats argued that Trump aimed a mob of supporters “like a loaded cannon” at the U.S. Capitol, endangering the lives of members of Congress. House Democrats presented their case for why the former president should be convicted and permanently barred from office.

The legal brief attempted to link Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election to the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, saying he bears “unmistakable” blame for actions that directly threatened the underpinnings of American democracy. It argued that he must be found guilty when his impeachment trial opens before the Senate next week on a charge of inciting the siege. And it used evocative language to conjure the day’s events, where “terrified Members were trapped in the Chamber” and called loved ones “for fear they would not survive.”

The dueling filings offer the first public glimpse of the arguments that both sides intend to present at the impeachment trial, Trump’s second. They show how Democrats will look to explicitly fault Trump for his role in the riot and to also make the case that his behavior was so egregious as to require permanent disqualification from office. On the other side will be challenges to the trial’s constitutionality and claims that Trump’s speech was protected by the First Amendment.