C&B Break Down Rittenhouse Prosecutor’s Closing Argument

BUCK: We are in the closing moments here of the trial that everyone across the country is watching, wondering about, waiting for a verdict in: the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Welcome back to the Clay and Buck show. We want to join in progress because we are live and so are the prosecution’s final comments. Let’s go to it for a moment.

PROSECUTOR: But the defendant’s down there, he says, because he wants you to believe he’s protecting Car Source, even though he had no actual ties or gen-u-ine concern for this building. You have this caravan of people from West Bend — Ryan Balch, Jason Lakowsky, Joanne Fiedler — coming down from some other community, having no idea what’s going here in Kenosha, having no idea what businesses there are, having never dealt with Car Source before, just injecting themselves into this situation.

Car Source that night was empty. The owners testified they moved all the cars off the lot. They took the tools out from inside, and they didn’t even feel the need to protect that building. So who’s there? These guys with their AR-15s are just wannabe soldiers, acting tough, trying to manufacture some personal connection to this event, furthering their own personal agenda, just a small part of the deluge of chaos tourists we saw here in Kenosha trying to feed off of what we were going through, despite everything we did to try and tell ’em, “Go away. Stay out.”

BUCK: I just want to note here, Clay… I just want to give folks a sense… My blood was boiling just listening to that. I’m sure a lot of people felt the same way. But you gotta know what the clear Democrat prosecutor here for the state of Wisconsin is doing, meaning he’s a person of Democrat, leftist ideology. That much is… It’s been obvious from the very beginning.

And here he is saying essentially that he really takes the side of the rioters to burn down buildings. (paraphrased) “What’s the big deal? There were no tools in there. They got rid of their stuff. It wasn’t that big a deal! So some people were upset about BLM stuff; they want to burn down some buildings.

“Why are they showing up and trying to stop that?” The left needs to have its way, Clay. They need to be able to riot, don’t you see? They should be able to intimidate and frighten people because they’re upset. They’re upset about systemic oppression. Sure they are.

CLAY: And also we need to play… This, to me, it seems, that the Kenosha prosecutor here is doing his best in many ways it feels like to me to just tank this case. Listen to what he said earlier in this closing argument. By the way, the prosecution doing their closing argument. The defense will do their closing argument.

They are reportedly each getting 2-1/2 hours — up to that — to make their case, and then this would go to the jury. So certainly, I would be very surprised if we don’t have a verdict early part of this week. But listen to this prosecutor saying you lose the right to self-defense when you’re the one who brought the gun.

PROSECUTOR: They have to convince that you Joseph Rosenbaum was going to take that gun and use it on the defendant because they know you can’t claim self-defense against an unarmed man like this. You lose the right to self-defense when you’re the one who brought the gun, when you’re the one creating the danger, when you’re the one provoking other people.

BUCK: No!

CLAY: No! All that’s a lie.

BUCK: Totally wrong.

CLAY: Look, Buck, you and I know — and anybody out there who’s ever been a student of self-defense or anything else — unarmed people can kill you. They can take your weapon and shoot you with it. They can knock you down on the ground and then stomp on your head with a huge mob of other people. This idea that an unarmed person cannot be dangerous flies in the face of reality. And when they’re trying to take your gun from you, the only assumption you can have, I think, is they’re going to use that gun against you.

BUCK: What’s the alternative? You have to ask yourself, what is the expectation here? Rittenhouse has people saying they’re going to kill him. They’re part of a mob that is engaged in mob destruction and violence.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: These are bad people doing bad things. These are not people walking home after a hard day’s work who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They’re there. Notice, the prosecutor is saying, “Why is Kyle Rittenhouse there?” They’re not from this community and of this community. They’re just coming, these are Antifa lunatics fronted caring about BLM so they can go on a destruction spree and have MSNBC anchors kissing up to them at night — which is appalling, by the way, but that’s when ended up happening as we all know.

But you brought up the use-of-force issue. When you get trained… I’ve been trained on sidearms, long guns, all of it, and they’ll tell you, “If somebody’s within 20 feet, give or take, they’ll probably be able to get to you and attack you before you can draw.” So they actually will tell you, “You have to create a” dare I say “safe space.” You have to create a kind of firearms social distancing.

CLAY: A zone of safety.

BUCK: And it’s absolutely true, and he got hit with a skateboard, somebody has a knife, somebody has a hammer and they’re within 20 feet and you’re not actually ready, actually have your rifle ready to go or you have your handgun already drawn, they’re gonna be able to hit you. So what is this prosecutor really arguing for in terms of the response Rittenhouse is supposed to have?

Let them beat you conscious and then hope they don’t kill you while you’ve been beaten, after they’ve been threatening to kill you verbally which is all on video? Clay, this is clear self-defense. What you have here is a prosecutor who is arguing, “The left should be allowed to riot when it sees fit and armed citizens shouldn’t be able to stand in their way.”

That’s what he’s saying. And he provoked this? They’re really going with Rittenhouse was wearing the proverbial short-skirt situation here. That’s what they’re gonna say? He provoked the attack? Unbelievable from this prosecutor.

CLAY: Yeah. And I’ve always said, if a jury comes back really rapidly with a not-guilty verdict — and I think there’s a very good chance that’s what’s gonna happen in this case. We don’t know. We were talking earlier about what the mind-set of the jury might be. Certainly, it’s different now in Kenosha than it might have been in Minneapolis surrounding George Floyd with not only the case itself going on.

But your fear as a juror of what might happen depending on what your verdict is, depending on whether people might track you down. It feels like the temperature is dialed down be quiet in Kenosha and that this is going to be… I really don’t think… Based on the evidence that I have seen, Buck, I think it’s almost to the point where the judge can take this and direct a verdict.

By the time — and I understand the judge wants the jury to make the decision because we’ve gotten all the way here. But earlier today the judge said, “Hey, this firearms charge as a matter of law is dismissed because it can’t be proven.” For people out there who don’t spend a lot of time on court-related proceedings, judges decide issues of law; juries decide issues of fact.

And I think we’re so close with the factual evidence in this case to there not be any determination as to whether or not… I mean, the guy who got shot, for instance. At least in his case, he testified that he was pointing his gun at Kyle Rittenhouse when he was shot. That is — by the admission of the person who was shot — to me, a textbook example of a crime that could not occur because if you point a gun at me and threaten me and I fire at you, that is a textbook definition of self-defense, by law, not even by fact.

BUCK: I’ve been in government-run training shoot houses, essentially, where you’re firing squibs and people that will —

CLAY: Pop up and sometimes there’s danger.

BUCK: You’re learning to understand, is someone in danger? Is someone reaching for something? Are they reaching for a cigarette or are they reaching for a firearm? If you were setting up training modules, based on the video you have here, you would say that these are instances where you would be justified in using lethal force. That it’s clear-cut.

What else…? What was the alternative here, when people are actually running and attacking him, knowing, by the way, that he had a rifle. So they understand this; so what do they think is gonna happen? What was their…? The assailants here, the three who were shot, what was their expectation of Rittenhouse’s response in all of this too?

The prosecutor would have you believe that, oh, they were just gonna like slap him a little bit and leave him alone. Rittenhouse doesn’t know that. Who the heck knows? One of these guy’s a convicted child rapist as we all know. These are also bad people which also should factor into the decision at some point. It is relevant as far as we’re having a discussion about what happened here and we should be able to bring in the facts that we want to.

We’re not in the courtroom. And I just think that what you see, Clay, when you’re talking about a directed verdict, you know, a judge can set aside — can set aside a jury verdict, too, if he wants to. It’s ’cause this case never should have been brought. You’re right. They never should have even brought this case because the facts are so clear.

CLAY: It’s a hundred percent right and the judge, I would think, who’s been a trial judge for a very long time, could look at this and say, “As a matter of law, I don’t even need the jury to be involved.” Now, I think he wants the jury to acquit because that is even more sound legal victory for Kyle Rittenhouse than the judge making that decision.

But I think on at least some of these charges you can use the testimonies that were made in court to eliminate any factual uncertainty; say, “This is — by letter of the law — self-defense,” certainly in the case of the guy who was pointing a gun that got shot.