Colorado trial expert says Trump promoted violence unlike others, despite Dems' record of same words

An expert witness in the Colorado trial to determine whether former President Donald Trump should be taken off the state 2024 GOP primary ballot said that he hadn’t seen another American political figure endorse violence the way Trump has, despite Democrats making comments that have been also criticized as violent.

Trump is facing hearings in two lawsuits this week that each argue that the 14th Amendment's "insurrection" clause in Section 3 bars him from running for the Oval Office again.

On Monday, hearings for the case of Norma Anderson et al vs. Jena Griswold and Donald J. Trump before the Denver County District Court began with oral arguments from both sides and witnesses for the petitioners. 

The trial is expected to last a week, with the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, on behalf of six voters, suing the Colorado secretary of state and Trump. 

The Colorado GOP has also intervened in the case. 

The petitioners' lawyers also argued on both Monday and Tuesday that Trump mentioned only once at the rally outside of the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, being "peaceful" because was just him trying to prevent culpability for using "fight."

On Tuesday, petitioners’ lawyer Eric Olson questioned his expert witness Dr. Peter Simi, a sociology professor at Chapman University. Simi testified that he has studied far-right extremism for more than 20 years.

Simi testified that Trump has called for violence and that he hadn’t seen another American political figure endorse violence the way Trump has done.

During Olson’s direct examination of Simi, he showed various video clips from some of Trump’s speeches where the 45th president said to “fight” or made comments following rallies that turned violent. One of the clips shown during the trial on Tuesday was Trump's speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6th, where he told his supporters to "fight like hell."

Olson asked Simi, “In your work on leaders of political extremism, have you ever seen a national leading political figure endorse violence in the way that you’ve seen Donald Trump endorse violence?”

Simi replied, “No, I have not.”

Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project, responded to Simi’s testimony on Tuesday, noting that the sociologist received his doctorate “in Vegas and he had some pretty wild opinions today.”

“The Cliffs Notes version is this: when Democrats say ‘fight,’ it's good. When Republicans say ‘fight,’ it's bad,” Davis told Just the News. “When Democrats say ‘peaceful,’ it’s good. When Republicans say ‘peaceful,’ it’s bad.”

He later added, “It’s amazing that the same Democrats who are clutching their pearls about President Trump’s political speeches are defending and cheering on abortion industry activists threatening and intimidating Supreme Court justices and their families outside of their homes, even after the 1 a.m. assassination attempt against Justice Kavanaugh’s family.

“These same Democrats said BLM’s very deadly and destructive riots were mostly peaceful, and are defending Hamas supporters as they threaten and even engage in violence against Jews all over the world, including even in America,” Davis continued.

“If Democrats don't like your speech, it’s violence; if Democrats like your speech, it's free speech,” he also noted.

The assassination attempt that Davis referred to occurred in June 2022, when Nicholas John Roske from California was carrying weapons near Kavanaugh's Maryland home before being arrested. He admitted to intending to break into the home and kill the justice before committing suicide.

Prior to the attempt, the Senate passed a bill protecting Supreme Court justices' families.

Just a day after Roske was arrested outside of Kavanaugh's home, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) postponed the vote on the bill, saying, "No one is in danger." Less than four months later, a deranged man broke into Pelosi's home and bludgeoned her husband Paul with a hammer. 

In another instance, in 2021, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., criticized Rep. Maxine Waters’, D-Calif., remarks at a protest during the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

Waters said, ”We're looking for a guilty verdict."

"We've got to stay on the street and we've got to get more active, we've got to get more confrontational,” Waters also said. "We've got to make sure that they know that we mean business.”

McCarthy said that Waters "broke the law by violating curfew and then incited violence. Increased unrest has already led to violence against law enforcement and her comments intentionally poured fuel on the fire."

During the Senate trial of the second impeachment of Trump, one of the former president’s lawyers showed a video clip of various Democrats calling for “uprisings” and “unrest.”

“I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country,” Pelosi said in 2018 regarding conditions for illegal immigrants and the U.S.-Mexico border.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said in August 2020 regarding changes in the U.S. Postal Service for mail-in voting, “There needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there’s unrest in our lives.”

The trial is expected to last all week, as the petitioners are to continue with their next expert witness on Wednesday.