I'm Ali Velshi in for Alex Wagner a magg a freak show that's how one person familiar with

Donald Trump's January 6 trial preparations describe the former president's strategy

according to Rolling Stone magazine. In new reporting today, Rolling Stones cites several of Trump's legal and political advisors

who claim that the former president is demanding that they incorporate fringe conspiracies

into his legal defense.

Quote, his list of ideas has included

asserting that there's evidence that anti-Trump elements

in the FBI framed him and MAGA protesters by using

undercover agents and informants to instigate the deadly January 6th riot.

That anarchists and left-wing anti-fascists played a role in attacking the Capitol that day,

and that Trump's lieutenants had gathered real evidence showing, quote, massive amounts of voter

and election fraud

end quote in 2020 in swing states and heavily Democratic urban areas

as he has long baselessly claimed."

Now, Trump's team has even discussed calling witnesses like Nancy Pelosi and other political

foes to the stand in an effort to paint them as the true villains of January 6th.

That new reporting helps explain why just last week the Special Counsel Jack Smith asked

the judge overseeing Trump's federal elections case to prohibit Trump from raising any of those conspiracies at trial.

Jack Smith appears to have anticipated these fantastical

absurd arguments from Trump, and legally, it is absurd.

It's hard to see how trotting out long debunked right-wing conspiracy theories

would help Trump win over a jury in Washington DC.

...