David Schoen: Trump impeachment lawyer reportedly lied about Democrats withholding video evidence before trial

Attorney also claims Democrats manipulated images and videos in their arguments

Donald Trump's impeachment lawyers have been accused of lying about having a video of the attacks on the US Capitol withheld.

David Schoen claimed that Democrats withheld video evidence of the Capitol attack prior to the impeachment hearings.

However, numerous news outlets are now reporting that sources speaking to them have confirmed that Mr Schoen was lying, and that the video was provided to the defence team.

Mr Schoen was referencing numerous videos that the impeachment managers used to highlight the violence at the US Capitol on the day of the insurrection.

PBS's Yamiche Alcindor was one of the reporters who confirmed the report.

"A source close to House Managers tells me that David Schoen was not telling the truth when he said Trump’s lawyers had not been given the new video evidence of the Capitol attack. That person says trial rules required giving Trump lawyers the videos before the start," she tweeted.

Mr Schoen also claimed that Democrats deceptively edited tweets and videos to make them appear worse than they were in full context.

However, the defence team then played their own heavily edited video featuring clips of Democratic lawmakers, media figures and, curiously, celebrities, making comments that were cut in a way to suggest they were calling for violence.

Some of the clips were actually cut off, as in the case of a clip of Madonna talking about "blowing up the White House," before the full context was presented. In the full Madonna clip, she says that doing that would not be effective and would not change anything, which is the opposite of what the defence team was trying to portray.

The defence team also falsely claimed that Mr Trump's first tweets during the Capitol attack were urging calm.

According to the defence, the former president's first tweets told rioters to "stay calm" and called for "no violence."

However, those tweets actually came after a tweet in which Mr Trump accused Vice President Mike Pence of betraying him.

“Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” he wrote.