Trump embraces Jan 6 rioters as patriots during court trial

Donald Trump has embraced the rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as patriots, vowed to pardon a large portion of them if he wins a second term, and even collaborated on a song with a group of jailed defendants.
However, in his election interference case in Washington, his lawyers are taking a different tack. Despite losing a bid to strike references to that day’s violence from the indictment, defence attorneys have made clear their strategy involves distancing the former president from the rioters, whom they describe as “independent actors at the Capitol.”
Meanwhile, special counsel Jack Smith’s team has signalled it will make the case that Trump is responsible for the chaos that unfolded and point to Trump’s continued support of the 6 January defendants to help establish his criminal intent.
The competing arguments highlight the extent to which the riot serves as an inescapable backdrop in a landmark trial set to begin on 4 March in a courthouse just blocks away from the Capitol. This also reflects a point of separation between Trump and his legal team in the case accusing the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss. While Trump’s glorification of the 6 January defendants may boost him politically as he vies to retake the White House in 2024, his lawyers’ approach lays bare a concern that arguments linking him to the rioters could harm him in front of a jury.
While Trump is not charged with inciting the riot, the success he hopes for at trial may depend in part on his defence team’s ability to neutralise, or at least minimise, the ghoulish images of the violence that prosecutors cite as a natural extension of the former president’s repeated lies about a stolen election. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case, characterising it as politically motivated.
Trump will stand trial in the same courthouse where roughly 1,200 of his supporters have been charged in the largest investigation in Justice Department history.