https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/donald-trump-domestic-terrorism-el-paso?fbclid=IwAR2Zg93HiaWOkllcTjRaYc0i8mw7FmeF6XxmW-k2V8_0fTiMYT5kPsxw8aA
"the Sayoc case is part of a broader pattern of attorneys invoking President Trump’s influence and rhetoric in defense of their clients in criminal cases. There have been at least a half-dozen such cases in the media over the last three years. In another high-profile case last November, an attorney representing Patrick Eugene Stein, one of three men convicted of plotting to bomb Somali refugees, argued that his client should receive a more lenient sentence because he was inspired by then-candidate Trump. “The court cannot ignore the circumstances of one of the most rhetorically mold-breaking, violent, awful, hateful, and contentious presidential elections in modern history,” attorneys Jim Pratt and Michael Shultz wrote. Similar defenses have been used in other cases that haven’t garnered the same level of media attention, as well: an attorney for a Los Angeles man who posted anti-Muslim threats on a mosque’s Facebook page argued that his client used “similar language and expressing similar views” to “campaign statements from then-candidate Donald Trump”; when a Florida man similarly made a threatening call to a mosque, his attorney noted the “very distinctly political climate” and cited the Trump travel ban; when a Penn State University student threatened to “put a bullet” in an Indian man on campus, his attorney argued he was motivated by “a love of country” and cited Trump “running for president of the United States saying that, ‘We’ve got to check people out more closely.’” The Trump Defense has only become more salient since the president took office. Last year, a man accused of groping a woman on a flight told FBI agents, “the president of the United States says it’s okay to grab women by their private parts."."
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