Former President Donald Trump cannot win an acquittal from any potential indictment related to the attack on the Capitol by arguing that he genuinely believed his false claims of election fraud, two highly regarded legal experts said.
Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, and Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor and current counsel to the advocacy group Lawyers Defending American Democracy, made the argument in a joint op-ed for The Hill, published on Thursday evening. The two experts said that a claim of sincere belief in errant claims of 2020 election fraud cannot be recognized as a reasonable defense, should Trump face prosecution for his actions in the days leading up to and on January 6, 2021, when a mob of his loyalists attacked Congress during its certification of the Electoral College results.
Trump could face prosecution from the Department of Justice (DOJ). According to statements made by Attorney General Merrick Garland, the DOJ is carefully watching the January 6 public hearings, and could make a prosecutorial decision based on the evidence the panel puts forward.
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