Trump's lawyers seem to be primed to use the ol' Kierkegaard-Costanza defense. I wonder if other criminals, burglars for instance, will insist that they really, sincerely believed it was their stuff they were taking that night, therefore there was no criminal intent.
Former President Donald Trump's legal team threatened to sue the cable network CNN for defamation, and the letter signals his attorneys are using a strategy likely to be a central defense should he ever face criminal charges related to his role in attempts to cling to power despite losing the 2020 election.
In the 282-page document, his lawyers said that the television network repeatedly said that Trump was "lying" and "fed a narrative that denounced President Trump's legitimacy and competency" following the presidential election.
The lawyers said CNN's portrayal of Trump is inaccurate because Trump "subjectively believes" there was election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
One of the likely defense strategies Trump's lawyers could employ is to argue that he genuinely believed that there was election fraud and did not have the intent to commit a criminal act.
For instance, in the document, the lawyers go into more detail about how Trump did not lie about election fraud by writing the full definition of that word.