Trump lawyer references Maura Healey and Ayanna Pressley during impeachment trial defense

Democratic impeachment managers weren’t the only ones invoking the words of Massachusetts elected officials during the Senate trial of former President Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

During the fourth day of Trump’s impeachment trial Friday, the former Republican president’s lawyer Michael van der Veen referenced remarks made last year by both Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley in his opening defense of his client’s own inflammatory rhetoric leading up the violent riot last month, which directly resulted in five deaths.

Van der Veen argued that Trump’s speech the morning of the riot urging supporters to march on the Capitol and “stop the steal” was “ordinary political rhetoric that is virtually indistinguishable from the language that has been used by people across the political spectrum for hundreds of years.”

He went on to cite comments made Democrats after the mostly peaceful protests across the country in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd led to looting and property destruction in some cities, including a June 2 speech by Healey and remarks Pressley made during an Aug. 15 interview on MSNBC.

Read more: https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2021/02/12/trump-lawyer-references-maura-healey-and-ayanna-pressley-during-impeachment-trial-defense