Harvard law prof: Trump's Jan. 6 defense lawyers better be "getting their client to plead insanity"

Laurence Tribe responded to Trump's angry video lashing out at the House Select Committee's final report

Published December 27, 2022 3:00AM (EST)

Former President Donald Trump (Emily Elconin/Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump (Emily Elconin/Getty Images)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

After the January 6 Select Committee released its final report, former President Donald Trump responded with an angry video attacking the committee and defending his actions before and during the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building. Veteran Harvard University law professor Laurence Tribe has responded to Trump's video, saying that his arguments in the video are so weak that he would be better off with an "insanity" defense if a prosecution comes about.

Trump, in the video, attacked members of the January 6 Committee as "very bad people" and claimed that they "did not produce a single shred of evidence" that he "intended or wanted violence at our Capitol." The former president insisted that the Committee was spreading "a monstrous lie."

Trump angrily declared, "We wanted security. We wanted safety. There was no insurrection, and there wasn't going to be an insurrection. It was made up by these sick people. Nancy Pelosi and the DC mayor refused; if they'd listened to me, my recommendation, none of this would have happened. And you wouldn't have heard about January 6 as we know it."

On Christmas Day 2022, the Harvard Law School professor tweeted, "If this is the 'defense' at Trump's forthcoming trial, I don't envy the lawyers who agree to represent him. They'd better be psychiatrists expert at reflexive projection and capable of getting their client to plead insanity."


By Alex Henderson

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