WHEN the defence of former president Donald Trump began in the Capitol yesterday evening, it was clear that his legal team was starting on the back foot after the Democrat impeachment managers’ impressive case for the prosecution.

One can only imagine, therefore, Trump sitting in his Florida resort shellshocked by the sheer nonsense produced by his lawyers live on television across the world.

No doubt the defence team thought it was being clever in using the Democratic Party’s own words against them, no doubt some genius thought it was a great idea to do a video mash-up of Trump calling for law and order against some Democrats using the word “fight”, and no doubt they thought they were on solid legal ground by claiming Trump’s trial was unconstitutional and in any case, he had freedom of speech under the First Amendment.

Yet it all rebounded as pundits and public alike took to social media to pour withering scorn on Team Trump’s opening arguments for the acquittal of Donald Trump on the charge of inciting insurrection.

Matt Lewis wrote on Twitter: “I think part of the defence strategy here might just be to make a mockery of this whole thing. Muddy the waters. If it’s all ridiculous – all a joke – it’s easier for Republicans to vote to acquit.”

The sheer effrontery of Trump’s lawyers was obvious from the outset.

Attorney Michael van der Veen said “no reasonable person” could conclude that Trump’s speech on January 6 was an incitement to the violence in which the Capitol was invaded and ransacked and in which five people died.

Ignoring the fact that 10 Republicans voted to impeach Trump in the House of Representatives, Van der Veen said: “This impeachment is completely divorced from the facts, the evidence and the interest of the American people.

“No person could seriously believe the president’s January 6 speech on the ellipse was in any way an incitement to insurrection.

“The president devoted nearly his entire speech to an extended discussion of how legislators should vote on the question at hand.”

He conveniently left out Trump’s remarks about marching on the Capitol and fighting like hell, but did claim quite nonsensically that the rally had been hijacked by people of “various different stripes and political persuasions” when all the evidence showed the rioters were Trump supporters.

Trump’s lead attorney David Schoen claimed the House impeachment managers had “manipulated” the evidence.

He said: “We have reason to believe that House managers manipulated evidence and selectively edited footage. If they did this in a court of law, they would face sanctions from the judge.

“They selectively edited the president’s words over and over again. They manipulated video, time-shifting clips and made it seem the president’s words were playing to a crowd when they weren’t.”

The Trump Team also played a manipulated video of Democrats talking about “fighting” and objecting to electoral college votes for Trump in 2017. The only problem is that those words didn’t lead to insurrection and rioters seeking to kill the vice president and Speaker of the House. Van Der Veen returned to make one point that did resonate, which was that Trump had freedom of speech under the First Amendment, but he pointedly did not say if that included incitement to insurrection. He did say: “This case is about political hatred. It has become very clear that the House Democrats hate Donald Trump.

“Hatred is a dangerous thing. We all have to work to overcome it.”

The irony that he was defending a man who was hateful in and out of office was clearly lost on the lawyer.