Trump lawyers slammed for ‘false equivalencies’ in Black Lives Matter video

Legal team try to argue Democrats were just as violent-sounding as he was

Unlike the first impeachment, which revolved around clandestine conversations and backroom machinations in Ukraine, Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial has turned into a war of competing videos.

On Friday, the former president’s lawyer David Schoen showed a supercut of liberals seeming to endorse or minimize the occasional violence that attended police brutality protests over the summer, which included clips of elected Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and media figures like MSNBC’s Ali Velshi. Mr Schoen argued these comments “set a dangerous double standard” and invalidated the impeachment.

“We need to show you some of their own words,” Mr Schoen, who previously complained of Democrats’ own video montage, said before launching his.

Nearly all of the comments included in the selection on Black Lives Matter were taken out of context or selectively edited, however, and some observers argued the president’s team was making a false equivalency.

The video pairs comments from Democrats with violent scenes during the summer’s uprisings.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells a crowd, “I just don’t know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country, and maybe there will be.”

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MSNBC’s Ali Velshi stands in front of a burning building but says the protest he’s covering has been largely peaceful.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer tells an interviewer, “I’m proud of NY, and I’m proud of the protests,” before adding, “Our country is a nation of protest. The patriots were protestors.”

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley says on TV, “There needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there’s unrest in our lives.”

Kamala Harris tells Stephen Colbert, “They’re not gonna stop, and everyone beware, because they’re not gonna stop," she says, before adding, "They’re not gonna stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after Election Day.

The quotes largely ignore the full context of what the individuals were saying. The vice-president and all of the Congress members mentioned explicitly condemned the violentelements of that summer’s protests, which were almost all peaceful.

And some of the quotes weren’t even about police protests or violence. Ms Pelosi’s remarks were about protesting the Trump administration’s family separation policies. Ms Pressley’s full quote was about sending emails, calling people’s representatives, and protesting, not calling for violence. And it’s doubtful Velshi believed the protests were all peaceful, as he was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet during one of them.

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Some observers argued that comparing Black Lives Matter protests to the president’s actions, where he spent months fomenting nationwide protests against the election results before rallying his supporters in Washington, and initially praising the Capitol mob as “very special,” was an unfair comparison.

“People angry over centuries of racial abuse are the exact same as channeling people to attack Congress to overturn the election” is a hell of a defense,” wrote MSNBC’s Hayes Brown.

Civil rights attorney Jo Kaur pointed out Mr Schoen’s past work as a civil rights attorney and argued he was making “false equivalencies.”

“One of Trump’s attorneys - David Schoen - claims on his website that he is a civil rights attorney who has assisted victims of police/prison brutality,” she wrote on Twitter. “The question is how racist will he get today by making false equivalencies to BLM protests?”

And communications professor Jason Johnson noted that president Trump had called it a “beautiful sight” when police hit Velshi with tear gas and rubber bullets.

“This is disgusting,” he said on Twitter. “@AliVelshi was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet covering 2020 protests. Trump MOCKED him being shot - and #Schoen uses that footage to DEFEND the former president?”

The argument landed for some, however.

“Trump lawyers, Michael Van Der Veen & David Schoen, have eviscerated the arguments of the Democrat House #impeachment managers,” wrote Steve King, the Trump ally and former congressman from Iowa. “This is a terrific defense of @RealDonaldTrump.”