Sadly the courts would have to prove he was conscious that it wasn't rigged. Or some type of ignorance to listen. I dunno how that works in court.
I’ve seen commentary from various media sources to the effect that Trump cannot be convicted in connection with his efforts to overturn the election if he honestly believed he won the election.
As I see it, this is not 100% correct because it does not consider the specific acts that might be alleged to violate a specific law.
For example, many of the rioters who have been convicted in connection with January 6 apparently believed that the election was “stolen” but they were convicted anyway because their motive was not an element of the crime.
Trump’s lawyers could argue that he was simply acting to protect the election process because he’s required to do so as President, and he honestly believed the election was fraudulent (I saw a Trump lawyer on the news making an argument to this effect). Notice the slight of hand in this argument. Regardless of Trump’s beliefs about the election results, even as President he still cannot use illegal means to achieve the result he believes is correct.
For purposes of discussion, what if Trump had walked into the capital building on January 6 and started shooting and killing Democrats. Would he have immunity to murder charges if he honestly believed he had won the election?
Based on the (unverified) bits and pieces reported in the media, my impression is the prosecutor is pursuing charges based on fairly specific acts that do not require knowledge that the election was not stolen. My best guess (admittedly speculative) is that at least some of the charges involve Trump’s efforts to change the vote count in Georgia.Even if Trump believed that the count in Georgia had been wrong due to fraud, he would not be able to fraudulently change the vote count to offset the prior counts he believed were fraudulent.
Having said that, there’s no doubt that the prosecutor will have a stronger case if he can present strong evidence that Trump either knew or should have known that the election was not “stolen.”