Trump Impeachment: Legal Team Says Trial Is A 'Selfish' Act By Democrats

President Donald Trump's legal team on Monday lashed out against his Senate impeachment trial, arguing the case brought forth by Democrats seized on the nation's angered mood after the Capitol riots on Jan. 6.

Trump faces one count of inciting an insurrection after the House impeached him on Jan. 13.

His legal team, who recently took over after five lawyers abruptly quit, argued in a brief that Trump was exercising his First Amendment rights with claims the election was rigged against him. They also stated that Trump did not call on his supporters to riot when he addressed them from The Ellipse near the Capitol grounds, as lawmakers were certifying the results of the presidential election.

The case is not about justice, they argued.

“Instead, this was only ever a selfish attempt by Democratic leadership in the House to prey upon the feelings of horror and confusion that fell upon all Americans across the entire political spectrum upon seeing the destruction at the Capitol on Jan. 6 by a few hundred people,” read the brief obtained by the Associated Press.

More than 100 First Amendment attorneys and constitutional law experts argued last week in a letter that much of Trump’s defense was baseless.

"… we all agree that any First Amendment defense raised by President Trump's attorneys would be legally frivolous," they wrote. "In other words, we all agree that the First Amendment does not prevent the Senate from convicting President Trump and disqualifying him from holding future office."

Stemming from the American Civil War, Sec. 3 of the 14th Amendment bars anyone involved in attacks against the nation from ever holding office again. On the free speech claim, those same lawyers argued that “no reasonable scholar or jurist” would argue then President Trump had a right to “incite a violent attack … then to sit back and watch on television as Congress was terrorized and the Capitol sacked.”

There have been over 135 arrests from the riots. Five people died in the unrest, including a police officer.

In Congress, 10 members of the Republican Party voted in favor of the article impeachment filed against Trump when he was in office. All but five Republican members in the Senate voted to hold a hearing.

Trump is not expected to be convicted in the Senate as 67 members of the evenly-split chamber would have to uphold the charge filed in the House. Jason Miller, a senior advisor to the former president, told Agence France-Presse last week that Trump will not testify in the Senate hearing.