Former President Donald Trump‘s lawyer Jonathan Mitchell conceded, during a round of questions from Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, that the events of January 6, 2021, were “shameful, criminal, violent, all of those things.”
It’s a characterization of the January 6 events that contrasts starkly with Trump’s description of January 6 as a “beautiful day” and the former President’s portrayal of January 6’s convicted felons as “hostages” held by the U.S. government.
“Some people call them prisoners. I call them hostages,” Trump has said, calling on President Biden to “release the J6 hostages, Joe. Release them, Joe.”
Those convicted of January 6 crimes, whose actions Mitchell — in front of the Supreme Court — called “shameful” and “criminal” are the same convicts who Donald Trump has referred to as “great patriots” while calling their prosecution a “disgrace.”
Mitchell: For insurrection, there has to be an organized effort to overthrow the government
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 8, 2024
Jackson: So a chaotic effort to overthrow the government is not an insurrection? pic.twitter.com/8LSUQkPgzY
At SCOTUS, Mitchell further sought to characterize the events of the day as a “riot,” but not, importantly for his case, an “insurrection.” Mitchell defined an insurrection as an “organized attempt to overthrow the government.”
Questioning the importance of Mitchell’s first adjective — “organized” — in that description, Justice Jackson asked whether a “chaotic attempt to overthrow the government” also qualified. Answering, Mitchell neglected the distinction the Justice tried to draw between “organized” and “chaotic,” saying overarchingly that his side “didn’t concede [January 6] was an effort to overthrow the government.”
Trump is asked to give a message of hope to the J6 prisoners. He says they are patriots, and what’s happening to them is a disgrace since Antifa and BLM burned down all our cities and nothing happened to them. pic.twitter.com/poz6KED184
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 14, 2023
