Fox’s John Roberts made some surprising (for Fox) comments about the Democrats’ presentation on Day One of the Trump impeachment trial. Anchor Bret Baier somewhat agreed.

As the House prosecutors’ concluded their portion on the question of Senate jurisdiction, Fox provided some analysis. Shannon Bream regurgitated GOP talking points (my next post will be about that). Then came these unexpected remarks from two Fox anchors:

ROBERTS: In the president’s pretrial brief, they do point to this idea of [the Capitol insurrection] being pre-planned, saying the Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed the breach of the Capitol was planned several days in advance. The Capitol Police, the NYPD, the FBI all had prior warning there was going to be an attack on the Capitol.

And yet, when we saw that video, we saw some of the people who were at the tip of the spear breaching the Capitol, repeating what President Trump had said in his rally: “We will stop the steal.” And then that one fella who said, “We are listening to Trump. He’s your boss,” when they were confronting the Capitol Police officer, there would seem to be at least some degree of linkage.

BAIER: Yeah, John, and we know that right now there’s still not a definitive decision about witnesses but we know from interviews that have happened with some of the people who’ve been arrested and charged, they point back to the president’s speech and that’s being cited by Democrats.

Expect the Trump attorneys, though, to come forceful about the constitutionality question first and then to make the case that this was not incitement by the president. We’ll see.

You can watch it below, from Fox News’ February 9, 2021 coverage of Trump’s second impeachment.