'Not as easy as it looks': Ex-senator says Trump must 'be careful' litigating election lie
Former President Donald Trump is now laying the groundwork to argue that he really was right the election was stolen in his 2020 election interference case — or at least that he had reasonable cause to believe it was.
But that defense is not going to work, former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) told MSNBC's Alex Wagner on Wednesday evening.
"There is this meta-fact of Trump relitigating the Big Lie," said Wagner. "Once again, an election year, Claire. He, in many ways, poisoned the groundwater for American democracy. It looks like he is going to take another turn at that, if you will, on doing the same thing all over again, to use many mixed metaphors."
"You hear his intention is to drum up some sort of phantom evidence that the election was stolen," Wagner continued. "Once again, how concerned does that make you as far as the broader American project?"
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"If there was factual evidence that this election was somehow tempered with, or stolen, we would've heard about it long before now," said McCaskill. "That is why I think public trials, and public hearings — and Hunter Biden was smart to say let's do my testimony in public. Every time they tried to trot out something that was going to be damning, whether it was the Biden family, or how the election was conducted, they failed. They failed miserably. You know why? They don't have the evidence. There is no evidence. If there were, all the cases that have already been decided it would have been decided differently."
Regarding Trump, McCaskill continued, "He may try to talk about the Big Lie in these cases, but there's a big difference between talking about it, outside of court, and even referring to it in pleadings. Lawyers have to be careful about what theories they put forward. If they know they're not truthful, they could get in trouble. Obviously, if the guy that hangs out at Mar-a-Lago takes the stand, he has to be careful. So, this is not as easy as it looks for him to try to just throw out the Big Lie as a defense."
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