Trump defense attorney Michael van der Veen on Saturday slammed CBS reporter Lana Zak for asking a leading question about House impeachment managers doctoring evidence. According to the attorney, Zak downplayed the significance of the doctored evidence.
"The prosecutors in this case doctored evidence. They did not investigate this case and when they had to come to the court of the Senate to put their case on, because they hadn't done any investigation, they doctored evidence," van der Veen explained. "It was absolutely shocking. I think when we discovered it and we were able to expose it, I think it turned a lot of senators."
"The American people should not be putting up with this. They need to look at who these House managers were and who they want representing them," he said. "It was shocking to me."
Zak followed up to talk about the "doctored evidence."
"They didn't deny it. They didn't deny it. Put it in front of them three times."
The reporter said she wanted to explain what the "doctored evidence" is to reporters.
"What you're talking about now is a checkmark that's a verification on Twitter that did not exist on that particular tweet [and] a '2020' that should have read '2021' and the selective editing, you say, of the tapes," Zak explained.
"Wait. Wait. Wait," he chimed in. "That's not enough for you? That's not enough for you?"
Zak interrupted again, saying she wanted to explain what van der Veen was referring to for audience members who may not have closely followed the impeachment trial.
"It's not okay to doctor a little bit of evidence," he shot back. "Respectfully, it's not your questioning."
The attorney launched into a tirade about the mainstream media's dishonest reporting.
"The media has to start telling the right story in this country. The media is trying to divide this country. You are bloodthirsty for ratings and, as such, you are asking questions now that are already set up with a fact pattern," van der Veen continued. "I can't believe you would ask me a question indicating that it's alright to doctor a little bit of evidence. There's more stuff that we uncovered that [the impeachment managers] doctored, to be frank with you. And, perhaps, that will come out one day. ... what someone should do is look at the conduct of these House managers. It's unconscionable, aside from all of the due process violations that my client had."
The attorney went on to say that the media is so "slanted" that each station has completely different coverage of what's taking place.
"What I'm telling you is they doctored evidence and I believe your question was, 'Well, it's only a Twitter check and changing the year of a date here,'" van der Veen explained. "They switched the date of a [tweet] a year to connect it to this case. That's not a small thing, ma'am. The other thing they did was put a checkmark on something to make it look like it was a validated account when it wasn't, and when they were caught they didn't say anything about it. They didn't even try to come up with an excuse about it. And that's not the way our prosecutors or our government officials should be conducting themselves."
Trump defense attorney Michael van der Veen speaks with @LanaZak after the Senate's acquittal vote: "What happened at the Capitol on January 6 is absolutely horrific. But what happened at the Capitol during this trial was not too far away from that."
— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 13, 2021
Watch the full interview: pic.twitter.com/ndjBZzJgNZ
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