Editor’s Note: Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor Emeritus at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. He is coauthor of “Modern Trial Advocacy” and has written many other books and articles on legal ethics and law practice. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
CNN —
The best defense former President Donald Trump has against his indictment in Washington for multiple conspiracies to defraud the United States as part of the events of January 6, 2021, hinges on his purportedly sincere belief that he actually won the 2020 election.
According to the prosecution, Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to “overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified.”
The indictment uses the phrase “knowingly false” another 32 times, underscoring the allegation that Trump’s various machinations were all part of a scheme to remain in power through intentional trickery and deceit.
Trump defense lawyer John Lauro, however, told NBC News, among others, that Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing, “believed in his heart of hearts that he had won that election.”
We already have a good idea of how the prosecution intends to prove its case at trial. The indictment lists over 100 allegedly false claims and statements by Trump, with times, places and witnesses. And...
You are reading the second issue of the Disinformation Monitor. It is published on a monthly basis and provides an overview of developments on the disinformation scenes on NATO’s eastern frontier....