Lawyers for Capitol Rioters Say That Trump Made Them Do It, Which…Duh

Just a few short months after Congress declared that the insurrections, and not President Donald Trump, were responsible for the deadly January riots at the U.S. Capitol, lawyers for the insurrectionists are now arguing in court that the insurrectionists never would have done it had Donald Trump not told them to. It’s almost as if all of the people screaming about “patriotism” and “taking America back” for the last four years would now like to be recused of their individual responsibility.

The only people willing to take up their causes in court are some of the most vile human beings on the planet. According to a recent interview with Talking Points Memo, the attorney for “QAnon Shaman,” Jacob Chansley, a man named Albert Watkins, used this defense in the most disgusting way possible to argue that his client, along with the other insurrectionists, are not responsible for their actions due to intellectual disabilities:

“A lot of these defendants — and I’m going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully — but they’re all fucking short-bus people,” Watkins told TPM. “These are people with brain damage, they’re fucking retarded, they’re on the goddamn spectrum.”

This, absolutely horrific, defense, according to TPM’s report, is an attempt to negotiate lesser sentences from among the more than 400 federal cases stemming from the insurrection, where much attention has been placed prosecuting members of groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, accused of conspiring to commit violence against members of the U.S. government.

But attorneys with expertise prosecuting cases say “I didn’t mean to” might only be a defense that works when the president uses it:

“It doesn’t matter if they were answering his call in terms of their own guilt or innocence,” said Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, referring to Trump. “The law doesn’t recognize it as an excuse. Whatever brought them there, whatever they were spurred on to do, social media postings or whatever, they’re equally guilty under the federal statutes.”

Another attorney for a man named Anthony Antonio, accused of breaching the Capitol through a broken window, argued that his client was suffering from “Foxitis,” an affliction caused by sitting at home for months at a time and becoming indoctrinated by Fox News and the networks constant stream of hateful misinformation. However, he later couched his statement as “not a defense — it’s pointing the finger of accusation where it belongs: to the slithery snake.”

Wow, it is also almost as if Trump blames his supporters, who blame Trump and his propaganda machine, who blame their audience again, around and around until the slithery snake has completely consumed itself and no one is held accountable for anything and the whole incident just disappears.