"Absurd" accusations which hide an act of "political revenge".
Donald Trump's lawyers demanded Friday February 12 the acquittal of the former President of the United States, accused of "incitement to insurgency", deeming his trial "unfair".
“Like all witch hunts initiated by the left over the past four years, the indictment has nothing to do with facts, evidence and American interests,” said Michael van der Veen in beginning the defense statement.
Donald Trump impeachment trial: defense speaks in Senate
04:12
Using the same weapons as Democratic prosecutors, he immediately released videos, in particular to show that Donald Trump has regularly presented himself as the protector of "law and order", but also that his opponents have themselves sometimes held fiery speeches.
The 45th President of the United States is notably criticized for having launched "Fight like devils" to his supporters, just before they launched an assault on the seat of Congress, where elected officials were in the process of to certify the victory of his democratic rival Joe Biden in the presidential election.
"This is ordinary political rhetoric, no different from the language used by all parties for hundreds of years," pleaded Michael van der Veen, warning of a lawsuit which he says "divides the Nation" .
Donald Trump trial: "nothing can be called incitement"
00:37
Donald Trump absent but confident
Donald Trump is not attending this trial, the outcome of which seems decided in advance.
It is indeed very unlikely that 17 Republican senators will agree to vote with the 50 Democratic senators to form the qualified majority necessary for his conviction.
"The president (Donald Trump, Editor's note) is very optimistic," one of his lawyers, David Schoen, said Thursday on Fox News, promising a short presentation, of less than four hours, in front of the hundred senators, judges, jurors and witnesses to this historic trial.
Still, a handful of elected officials from the Grand Old Party appeared disturbed by the relentless presentation of Democratic prosecutors over the past two days.
"That's what happens when you hire a film studio," replied David Schoen.
The Democrats "absolutely did not connect Donald Trump to all this".
Joe Biden, who has spent more than 35 years on the benches of the upper house of Congress, said he was "impatient" to see what his Republican "friends" would do in the vote that could come this weekend, hoping that 'they would take "their responsibilities".
The president, who has remained behind since the start of the trial, said he would not discuss the matter with senators.
The day before, he had hoped that the presentation of prosecutors had moved the lines and convinced some elected Republicans.
"He lit the fuse"
During their presentation, Democratic prosecutors pleaded that Donald Trump "knew how explosive the situation was" when he fueled the anger of his supporters, shouting, without providing any evidence, of "massive fraud" for months, before and after the presidential election which opposed him to Joe Biden.
"He lit the fuse and threw it directly at this chamber, at us," denounced one of the Democratic prosecutors, Joe Neguse.
The bloody attack was "the climax of the president's actions, not an anomaly," added Jamie Raskin, who heads the team of elected House of Representatives charged with bringing the charge.
Based in Florida, Donald Trump refused to testify.
But his voice has continued to resound in the hemicycle of the upper house of Congress, where his accusers have screened many extracts from his speeches and reproduced his inflammatory tweets.
"Who in this room can believe that he will stop inciting violence to achieve his ends, if he is allowed to return to the Oval Office?", Insisted Jamie Raskin.
It is by brandishing this fear of a repeat offense that prosecutors called on senators to condemn Donald Trump, because this verdict would be immediately followed by a vote to make him ineligible.
A verdict before Monday?
At the bar Friday, David Schoen retorted that the Democrats had "selected" the words of the president and gave a distorted image of his words.
He replayed in the hemicycle other extracts from his speech of January 6, in which the former president called on his supporters to march "in a peaceful and patriotic manner" on the Capitol.
After the defense arguments, it will be the turn of the senators to put their questions in writing to both parties.
The pace of the trial has accelerated, to the point that David Schoen said Thursday that a verdict could be rendered before Monday.
With AFP
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