Democratic impeachment managers jusr spent days piecing together their prosecution of former President Donald Trump's incitement of the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
Using tweets, internet videos, Trump's public comments at rallies and interview appearances and sobering security footage from the day of the Capitol riot, the House impeachment managers hammered home a direct link between Trump's repeated calls for violence and the execution of that violence on January 6.
In the face of that massive tapestry of evidence against his father, Donald Trump Jr. decided to invoke "I know you are but what am I" as a defense.
Pointing fingers back at the Democrats, Trump Jr. even made up a word in the process, ranting the Democrats "insurrected" first, Raw Story reported.
The son of the former President made the comments during an appearance on Newsmax. He denounced the logic of the House impeachment managers by harkening back to the countless demonstrations against the US' long history of racial bias in policing that leaves a disproportionate number of Black and brown people incarcerated, injured or killed.
Some of those protests devolved into physical clashes and destruction of property with some of the White supremacist Trump supporting organizations that also were present at the Capitol riot. But Jr. equated the violence with the Democrats instead of the Proud Boys.
For Don Jr, it was exactly the same as the Capitol riot.
"By that logic, we would take the last ten months and you would take the billion dollars worth of damage in looting, in rioting, in arson, in murder that took place across the country with the [Black Lives Matter] riots and the Antifa riots and you have the words of Kamala Harris, you have the actions of their campaign bailing out criminals."
"You have the words of Maxine Waters. You know, get up in their face. Nancy Pelosi, everyone."
Trump Jr. then tried to create some distance between his father and the riot.
"We've all denounced what happened on Jan. 6. No one hasn't. OK? That doesn't mean that then, by their rules, that they would be absolved of ten months of Jan. 6 that happened across the entire country. Right?"
Then he launched into an anti-Democrats tirade.
"You had everything else. All 'insurrected' by the Democrats and by their rhetoric on TV."
"I don't think that every time that someone says something that we should be able to tie it back to a couple of actions by lunatic players and say we've got to blame the person saying it."
"But why is it that the Democrats are allowing that. Why is it that they're pushing it. Why is the media ok with having that singular standard for one individual and a different standard for everyone else. It's ridiculous."
Watch the whole rant for yourself below.
Despite his loud voice and newly coined vocabulary, Trump Jr.'s argument begins to fall apart when we take into account the results of a recent analysis by the US Crisis Monitor, a joint effort by Princeton University and the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.
Their analysis of "more than 7,750 demonstrations in 2,400 locations across the country found that 93% happened with no violence," according to an Associated Press report which cited their report.
Compare that to 100% of Trump supporter Capitol riots ending in violence.
The AP report summed up Jr.'s false equivalency.
"But the two events were fundamentally different. One was an intentional, direct attack on a hallowed democratic institution, with the goal of overturning a fair and free election."
"The other was a coast-to-coast protest movement demanding an end to systemic racism that occasionally, but not frequently, turned violent."
The Youtube comments section beneath the Trump Jr. clip appeared to reflect a similarly skeptical view of his argument.
Lester Dwayne Jones/Youtube
Arishia/Youtube
Arzell Rodgers/Youtube
Dave Theseller/Youtube
Over on Twitter, people were just as baffled by Trump Jr.'s arguments.
Now that House impeachment managers have finished presenting the case against Donald Trump, the former President's legal team will now make it's case to defend Trump.
One has to believe their arguments will be a little more air tight than Trump Jr.'s, right?
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