Attorney John Pierce, who has represented dozens of Jan 6 defendants, claimed the attack on the US Capitol wasn't violent and tried to bothsides the insurrection.
Surprise, the CNN host refused play along.
In a very long interview, Abby Phillip refused to let Pierce control the interview and constantly pushed back on his mischaracterization of the violence perpetrated by Trump supporters.
A jury found Kenneth Thomas guilty of seven of the 12 charges, but tried to ask the judge to let him attend a January 6 festival fundraising event. He was denied the right to travel. To do a fundraiser. For the insurrection people.
Pierce then claimed his client and many other Jan 6 attendees were not violent.
Abby Phillip was not having it. "Look, I have to stop you there, because honestly, we watched what happened on January 6th, okay? And you can make sort of legalistic arguments about what exactly your client was convicted of and what he was not. There is no question there was violence at the Capitol, that officers were assaulted on that day. There is no question about that."
"There was violence on both sides," he said.
"No, no, no. It was a violent event," Phillip replied. "Police officers were doing their job."
"Some of the police officers were not doing their jobs. Some of the police officers were going way beyond doing their jobs, including unjustified lethal force. okay?" he claimed. Phillip's cut back in.
"John, a mob was attacking the Capitol. They were trying to break into the chamber. Some of them were armed. Many of them assaulted police officers to the point of permanent, long-term injury."
Phillip told her viewers Pierce has thirty-five clients. His client Thomas was convicted and facing jail time.
"So the seriousness of the crime is really not in question here, and I also don't think that it is legitimate in any way to say that just because there were a couple of people milling around that it wasn't, the objective of that day --
Pierce was upset, "That is a fundamentally, that is an unfair way to -- the vast majority of individuals --"
Pierce then got angry and said he knows more about the event than the CNN host does. That was the end of his credibility.
Telling a host to "STFU, I'm smarter than you" is not the way to win an argument.
Nice job, Abby.
