That section of the brief is highly misleading in some respects, minimizing the recklessness of Trump’s pre-riot speech and his inexcusable dereliction of duty after the assault on the Capitol began. Those actions and inactions rightly led to Trump’s impeachment by the House and should have resulted in his conviction by the Senate, which would have barred him from running for president again. But it does not necessarily follow that they amounted to engaging in an insurrection, and Trump’s lawyers offer several cogent reasons to reject that assessment.
…
That description omits crucial context, including the two months that Trump had spent ginning up his supporters’ outrage with phony claims of a stolen election, his messages encouraging them to attend a rally that he said would be “wild,” and the apocalyptic rhetoric of his speech at the Ellipse, which warned that Congress was about to destroy democracy by anointing a pretender as president. “We’re going to have somebody in there that should not be in there,” he said, “and our country will be destroyed, and we’re not going to stand for that.” If his supporters did not “fight like hell,” he warned, “you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
…
