Trump Attorney Van Der Veen Unleashes in Spat With Joaquin Castro Over Trump ‘Fight to the Death’ Quote

Former President Donald Trump’s attorney Michael van der Veen expressed outrage with House Democrats during Friday’s impeachment proceedings, saying Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) “illustrated the problem” with the case against the former president.

The spat transpired after Castro referred to an old tweet written by the former president. “If a Democratic presidential candidate had an election rigged and stolen with proof of acts at a level never seen before, Democrats would consider it an act of war and fight to the death,” Trump wrote in the missive. “Mitch and the Republicans do nothing, just want to let it pass. No fight.'”

“I wanted to clear up one more thing,” van der Veen said during the afternoon impeachment proceedings in the Senate. “Castro, in his first answer, may have misspoke, but what he said was, Mr. Trump had said ‘fight to the death.’ That is false. I’m hoping he misspoke.”

Castro returned 15 minutes later. “I just want to clarify for the record,” Castro said before reading the tweet aloud. “So Donald Trump was equating what Democrats would do if their election was stolen — he said they would fight to the death.”

Van der Veen returned to rage against Castro’s characterization. “I’m not from here,” he said. “I’m not like you guys. I was being very polite and giving an opportunity to correct the record, and I thought that’s exactly what he would do. But instead, what he did is he came up and he illustrated the problem with the presentation of the House case. It’s been smoke and mirrors, and worse, it’s been dishonest.

“What we discovered was, he knew what he was doing!” van der Veen fulminated. “He knew that the president didn’t say that to his people. What he said was if it happened to the [Democrats], this is what they would do. And his speech that day, you know what he said? He said if this happened to the Democrats, if the election was stolen from the Democrats, all hell would break loose. But he said to his supporters, we are smarter. We are stronger. And we’re not going to do what they did all summer long. So what he did was, he misrepresented a tweet to you to put forth [a] narrative that is wrong. It’s wrong, it’s dishonest, and the American people don’t deserve this any longer.”

Watch above, via Fox News.