Trump signaled to extremist groups on Jan. 6 according to "expert" testifying in Colorado

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Attorney Eric Olson, representing the plaintiffs, relied on expert testimony from an extremism expert during the second day of a trial that centers on whether Trump should be disqualified from running for president in the state, citing the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

Chapman University professor Pete Simi, who studies political violence and extremism, argued that Trump cultivated a far-right following for years even before running for president, creating a relationship he took advantage of in his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss. He said he was “very confident” that Trump led the events of Jan. 6.

“From my years of studying how far-right extremists perceive communication, the relationship that they developed with Donald Trump over multiple years, the various signals … promoting or endorsing violence, things done over social media … that aligned with many of the things that Trump said over the years,” Simi said.

“That relationship that was established and built, I think, really underscores how much influence he has for far-right extremists, and how much they perceive him as essentially one on their side or one of them,” he continued.

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Under cross-examination, Simi was asked if Trump had any intent to signal to the extremist groups.

“I can say he expressed a consistent pattern of messages over time that encouraged violence. He expressed messages over time that endorsed violence. And that’s very, I think in clear terms, part of this pattern,” he responded.

One question that the trial will likely center on is whether Trump was aware of or intentionally signaled to the far-right extremists to be violent or attempt to overturn the election violently. Simi believes the former president was aware.

“Seems pretty pretty clear to me,” Simi said. “I mean, I’m not in Donald Trump’s mind, obviously, but in terms of observable patterns, in terms of the repeated nature of the things we’ve been discussing, that’s all pretty apparent.”

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