Donald Trump impeachment: Ex-POTUS' legal team says supporters acted on their own during riots

Former President Donald Trump is set to have his impeachment trial at the Senate this week for the article of inciting an insurrection. With the January 6 riots at the Capitol pinned solely on Trump’s incitement, the former president’s legal team stated that his supporters acted on their own without his provocation.

A pre-trial brief from Trump’s impeachment defense team that was released on Monday said that the FBI documents showed that the riots at the Capitol were planned in advance and thus, Trump could not have incited the mob to engage in violence.

The pro-Trump mob swarmed the Capitol on January 6 as Congress was holding a joint session to formally count the electoral votes. Five people, including one Capitol police officer, were killed in the violence that occurred.

Later reports revealed that the mob was also targeting House and Senate leadership including then-vice president Mike Pence. The legal team also stated that Trump could no longer be held on trial as he has now left office and is back to being a private citizen.

“The impeachment proceeding was never about seeking justice,” wrote the lawyers in the brief. “Instead, this was only ever a selfish attempt by Democratic leadership in the House to prey upon the feelings of horror and confusion that fell upon all Americans across the entire political spectrum upon seeing the destruction at the Capitol on January 6 by a few hundred people.”

The Democratic impeachment managers argued that Trump’s endless attempts to overturn the election from Joe Biden and his refusal to concede following the projection of his loss were what encouraged the mob. The impeachment managers also pressed further, saying that Trump has betrayed the trust of the American people by inciting the violence.

During Trump’s crusade to overturn the elections in his favor, he was especially focused on the state of Georgia that flipped to Democrat in favor of Biden during the elections.

Now, state officials are launching an investigation into the revelation that Trump called upon Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the state’s results for him. This was a result of calls for Raffensperger’s office to investigate the complaint and a spokesperson for Raffensperger said that while the office looks into the complaints it receives, other efforts will be left to the state attorney general.