The prosecutors closing statement ended earlier today followed by a brief recess. The trial then resumed with defense attorney Mark Richards presenting closing arguments for his client. Richards started his arguments by immediately calling prosecutor Thomas Binger a liar.

The defense started out by again attacking Binger's credibility by producing a picture directly refuting his claim that Rosenbaum was not present at a particular scene…

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) November 15, 2021

Here’s the image shown in court with Rosenbaum circled (the standby message was accidentally left on the screen for the first few minutes):

“Showing you a snippet of state’s exhibit 18, which Mr. Binger just spent three or four minutes showing, that Mr. Rosenbaum wasn’t around.” Richards said. He added, “Ladies and gentlemen we’ve had this video almost as long as they’ve had this video. But Mr. Binger will use this video to lie to your faces and tell you that Kyle Rittenhouse was taking advantage of the situation.”

Binger objected and Richards pointed at the screen and replied, “It’s in the picture.” The judge merely said “It’s argument” and Richards was allowed to continue.

If you’ve been watching the trial then you may have noticed before today that Richards doesn’t seem to have a very high opinion of Binger. I would describe their relationship in the courtroom as “chippy.” It looks to me like Richards took the opportunity of closing arguments to make it clear to the jury he’s not a fan of the prosecutor. And that does help his client since if the jury does not believe the prosecutor is reliable, they are less likely to believe his account of the case.

Richards also attacked the defense’s use of the term “active shooter” during the trial. “The state wants to call my client an active shooter. And the reason they want to do that is because of the loaded connotations of that word,” he said. “Everyone has heard of the theater killings, the school shootings and things like that. Ask yourself, the definition of an active shooter is somebody with a plan to inflict multiple casualties, usually out of anger or animus towards a group. This case. What caused Kyle Rittenhouse to shoot somebody? Joseph Rosenbaum.”

Defense Attorney Mark Richards pushed back against the prosecution’s narrative during closing arguments on Monday saying that #KyleRittenhouse was not an active shooter. Richards accused Prosecutor Thomas Binger of using a “buzzword.” @LawCrimeNetwork pic.twitter.com/OPS8GUUvEI

— Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) November 15, 2021

Richards went on to note there were other claims made prior to trial in the media which weren’t backed up by the state’s case. Kyle Rittenhouse’s phone was turned over and searched by the FBI. “They took the phone, they made a copy, they searched it. Lo and behold nothing of an incriminating nature in it, nothing militia, white supremist, any of that,” Richards said. By contrast, Richards pointed out that prosecutors had a search warrant for Gaige Grosskreutz’ phone but declined to search it.

That’s just the start of it. Unfortunately I can’t queue this up to the defense close so you’ll have to scroll forward to get to it.