Jan. 6 tweet could doom Trump in Supreme Court -- and in Jack Smith's case

Donald Trump's lawyers have hung their defense of his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection on a line from his speech at the "Stop the Steal" rally at the Ellipse, but a trio of legal experts say the broader record of his statements and actions undermines that argument. The former claimed last month during a speech that his supporters had acted "peacefully and patriotically," echoing that key line from his speech that his attorneys have made a centerpiece of his defense since his post-Jan. 6 impeachment, but abundant evidence shows they did not and he didn't want them to, wrote legal experts Tom Joscelyn, Norman L. Eisen and Fred Wertheimer for Just Security. The authors lay out a detailed and damning compendium of Trump's public statements and behind-the-scenes evidence uncovered by prosecutors and the House select committee that shows White House officials, outside allies and family members begged the former president to call off his supporters once the violence erupted, but he refused for hours. That statement could undermine his U.S. Supreme Court appeal to a Colorado ruling to disqualify him under the Constitution's insurrection clause, and it could be used as evidence in special counsel Jack Smith's election subversion case.