In new challenge to indictment, Donald Trump’s lawyers argue he had good basis to question election results

Donald Trump had a “good faith” basis to question the results of the 2020 election, his lawyers said in demanding that prosecutors turn over any evidence related to voting irregularities and potential foreign interference in the contest won by Democrat Joe Biden.

A defense motion filed late Monday in federal court in Washington asserts that Trump was not obligated to accept at face value the judgments of government officials who time and again found no widespread fraud in the election. It floats the possibility that foreign actors might have influenced the race and alleges that federal officials gave “false assurances” to the public about the security of the election that “outpaced” what the government actually knew.

“It was not unreasonable at the time, and certainly not criminal, for President Trump to disagree with officials now favored by the prosecution and to rely instead on the independent judgment that the American people elected him to use while leading the country,” the lawyers wrote.

The filing is the clearest indication yet that Trump’s lawyers are hoping to sow doubt before a jury in the legitimacy of the race or at least make the case that his skepticism was justified and not motivated by criminal intent. The lawyers seek permission to force special counsel Jack Smith’s team to produce vast swaths of information that they say could aid the defense, including the “impact of foreign influence” and “actual and attempted compromises of election infrastructure” as well as evidence of potential “political bias” that could have shaped the intelligence community’s assessment of the election.

Courts around the country and Trump’s own attorney general have found no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome, and the Homeland Security Department’s cybersecurity arm pronounced it “the most secure in American history.” Smith’s team alleges that Trump, a Republican, ignored all of those findings and launched an illegal plot to undo the election and block the peaceful transfer of power.

The motion recounts Russian efforts in 2016 to undermine confidence in that year’s election, though it glosses over the intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow had a “clear preference” for Trump over his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.