Trump Indictment (Events of January 6, 2021): Read It For Yourself

Marchmaine says:

“These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. In fact, the Defendant was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue—often by the people on whom he relied for candid advice on important matters, and who were best positioned to know the facts—and he deliberately disregarded the truth. ”

Ok, I breezed through the doc… here’s my ‘explain it to me like I’m five’ question for lawyers:

The co-conspirators seem to have all told Trump that nothing was true, there wasn’t fraud; it would seem that to the extent that they persisted or made additional utterances contradicting what they told Trump they would definitely be guilty of defrauding (or whatever); I mean, seriously, the co-conspirators look dead to rights. Caught saying its a lie they then made public statements contrary to that. I get it… that seems very prosecutable.

My question for a five-year-old is: do they have Trump making the same statements? It’s possible they do and I breezed over it… that and that alone would be the thing I’d put out there.

Otherwise, what does it mean to ‘disregard the Truth’ when it comes from unreliable liars? Or, are we relying on the ‘common sense’ understanding that if all of his top advisors said it was fake, then Trump also knew it was fake — this is essentially what is represented in the indictment (as quoted at the top). If the latter and not the former… are we assuming that Trump won’t simply say something like: ‘I didn’t know what to think… my advisors are all liars — you’ve all seen Rudy lie in every possible way — *I* was being told that there was fraud by people then some people would say no fraud, then they’d say in public fraud, then other people would say….”

This is, aren’t we all metaphysically certain that Trump will throw every single advisor as a lying liar under the bus while all he was trying to do was get to the truth? Just because someone told you x was false, if you believe x is true and, if x were indeed true it’s the legal path, where’s the conspiracy? The plain reading of the Top Quotation is that they are going to prove that Trump *knew* right? Not that Co-Conspirator X knew, but that Trump did.

Don’t misread, I know Trump was lying and he knew he was lying… help me understand how you make a conspiracy charge stick when the Liar lies and says the co-conspirators were lying to him and he didn’t believe anything they said…? It would be Ironic, but would it be an actual defense play to agree that the Co-Conspirators were all liars whose advice couldn’t be trusted because of all the public lying? In which case, all the Co-Conspirators go to jail but the defendant is defended by a sort of ‘invincible ignorance’. Or is there some sort of ‘preponderance of reasonable assumptions’ standard that we can apply to a liar who’s willing to sacrifice all the other liars around him?

It’s totally possible that I missed the ‘smoking gun’ in the haystack of Co-Conspirator 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 all told him there was no fraud, and yet he persisted because (in a court of law) he can say he thought there was fraud — and it’s the requirement of the prosecution to prove his ‘state of mind’ in this regard? Or does it not matter at all?

If it matters, then I’d be a little nervous as a prosecutor knowing that the Defendant will casually and convincingly state that everyone around him betrayed his trust and lied — and *they* should definitely go to jail if what the prosecution says is true. As I say, we all know he was lying, but what’s the evidentiary standard of proving a conspiracy if the defendant persists in claiming he was deceived?Report