Trump pleads not guilty to January 6 charges and claims arraignment is ‘sad day for America’ – as it happened

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In the minutes after the Trump indictment was filed in federal district court in Washington, conservative commentators rapidly scrambled to his defense. Rightwing pundits lined up to compare the charges to criminalizing thoughts" and the dropping of fifteen dozen" atomic bombs - and that was just on Fox News.

Rightwing TV channel Newsmax, which has drained some of Fox News's audience in recent months, brought on Rudy Giuliani, an unnamed co-conspirator in Tuesday's indictment, who railed for seven minutes about Hillary Clinton's emails and Biden being a crooked president".