I must be losing my hearing because I listened to Trump's speech that day like always, and if not mistaken, He clearly said to MARCH PEACEFULLY. I didn't see any derogatory statement like you left wing, moron, America hating, baby killing radicals, whew that was a handful.
Good self assessment as you are losing your hearing. Below was also in his speech. The part you went "La, La,La" too.
"by Tom Joscelyn, Norman L. Eisen and Fred Wertheimer
February 8, 2024
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Filed under:
Democracy, Donald Trump, election interference, House Select Committee on January 6, January 6th Attack on US Capitol, Mike Pence, Special Counsel Jack Smith, Trump Indictment
Earlier today, former President Donald Trump once again claimed he bore no responsibility for the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “I said peacefully and patriotically,” Trump told reporters. That has been a persistent theme of his for years. The former president was repeating part of a short sentence culled from his lengthy speech at the White House Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021. By focusing on that brief phrase, Trump is trying to deceive both the courts and the public. He wants people to focus on a short passage in which he told his supporters to march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol, while ignoring all the inflammatory rhetoric he employed during the same speech.
With the federal election conspiracy case likely now on track for summer 2024 and Trump making many more public appearances over the course of this year, we can expect to see this line of defense play out in both the court of public opinion and in the run-up to the federal criminal trial (and the Georgia one where a 2024 trial has also been requested by prosecutors).
As we explain in detail below, Trump’s defense should fail in both those tribunals. We expect prosecutors will explain to the jurors why the sentence in the Ellipse speech is, in actuality, more incriminating than exculpatory when understood in context. Indeed, evidence uncovered by the January 6th Select Committee shows that Trump deliberately and repeatedly implored his followers to “fight” – and was reticent to use the word “peaceful” at all. Recent revelations of evidence gathered by Special Counsel Jack Smith will also help prove the case.
As we ramp up to trial, the general public should also not be led astray by the discourse. That requires journalists, commentators, and others to understand and communicate the truth about Trump’s Jan. 6 speech and other statements. We offer this essay as a contribution to that effort as well.
Trump’s Claimed Line of Defense
The key sentence in the Jan. 6 Ellipse speech, according to Trump and his attorneys, is this one:
“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Trump and his lawyers have made that sentence a centerpiece of his defense since the very first legal proceeding arising out of Jan. 6– namely, his impeachment and Senate trial. Trump’s Oct. 13, 2022 letter to the January 6th Select Committee bore the heading, “PEACEFULLY AND PATRIOTICALLY” in all caps. Where the law now threatens him most, in a DC federal court, Trump and his lawyers claim that he does not bear any criminal responsibility for the events that followed his speech on Jan. 6, 2021, because he encouraged his supporters to march “peacefully and patriotically” down to the Capitol.
Assessing the Full Record
The full weight of the evidence – first collected by the January 6th Select Committee and now Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office – tells a very different story. And it is a damning one for Trump’s defense. Indeed, the record includes strong evidence that Trump supported the use of violence on Jan. 6 and tried to use it to his political advantage to block the certification of the election. That is in the context in which the one reference to “peacefully and patriotically” in the Ellipse speech will be understood by the jury and should be understood by the American public.
The January 6th Select Committee found that the words “peacefully and patriotically” were drafted by Trump’s speechwriters – not Trump. Those two words were also completely at odds with the rest of Trump’s highly inflammatory remarks, during which he retold multiple lies about the election and directed the crowd’s anger at Vice President Pence and lawmakers. While Trump uttered the word “peacefully” just one time during his speech, which lasted more than an hour, he used variations of the word “fight” 20 times. That was Trump’s authentic voice. Though Trump knew the assembled crowd was “angry,” he ad-libbed the word “fight” on approximately 18 occasions. Trump also personally added multiple incendiary lines, including this one:
“We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
