Attorney John Lauro says defense intends to use subpoenas and witnesses to ‘pull the curtain back on the 2020 election’
The latest criminal charges against former President Donald Trump will give him an unprecedented opportunity to expose issues concerning the 2020 election during the trial process, according to his attorney John Lauro, who also called the indictment an attack on free speech and the First Amendment.
“This particular indictment is going to pull the curtain back on the 2020 election, so everybody can see what happened. And it’s the first time that it’s going to be done in one courtroom,” Mr. Lauro told The Epoch Times’ Jan Jekielek on Wednesday.
“We will have the ability to subpoena witnesses and subpoena documents,” he added.
“This is the first time when there’ll be a full airing of all of the issues in the 2020 election.”
The lawyer gave these comments one day after Special Counsel Jack Smith unveiled a four-count indictment against Mr. Trump over his efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The 45-page indictment charges Mr. Trump with criminal conspiracies to defraud the United States, obstruct the Jan. 6 certification of votes, and against the right to vote.
Mr. Lauro said he had spoken to the former president on Wednesday and he was “very upbeat, very strong, very positive.” Mr. Lauro, a white-collar attorney based in Tampa, joined the Trump legal team last month.
Trump’s Belief in the Truth of the Election Claims
Mr. Smith’s indictment repeatedly references accusations that Mr. Trump “knowingly” spread “false claims” about election fraud, citing multiple instances where officials, advisors, and staffers advised the then-president that “his claims were untrue.”
But Mr. Lauro argued that the special counsel will not be able to prove this because Mr. Trump himself believed in the truth of those claims.
“What the government would have to show is that President Trump acted corruptly to stop the truth from coming out and they will never … be able to do that because, number one, President Trump absolutely believed in the righteousness of his cause.
“And number two, everything he did was to get at the truth, not block the truth.”
By Cathy He, Jan Jekielek and Ross Muscato
