Posted on 08/02/2023 5:42:44 AM PDT by Red Badger
Legal experts reacted to former President Donald Trump’s third indictment Tuesday, sounding the alarm on how the indictment against his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election prosecutes protected speech.
Trump was charged Tuesday with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, one count of conspiracy against rights and one count of obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, according to the indictment. Legal experts said the charges are built on speech protected by the First Amendment.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Smith issued “the first criminal indictment of alleged disinformation.” “If you take a red pen to all of the material presumptively protected by the First Amendment, you can reduce much of the indictment to haiku,” he said. “I felt that the Mar-a-Lago indictment was strong. This is the inverse.”
Turley also said on Fox News the indictment is “unfair at points,” noting that it “quotes Trump in his speech about encouraging people to go to Capitol Hill, but like the January 6th committee, it omits where he says, ‘you should go peacefully.'”
The indictment states that Trump “had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won” but then states he “also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting election results.”
Lawyer and Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter called the indictment “45 pages of First Amendment protected activity.” “It’s 45 pages of First Amendment protected activity broken up by four captions listing conspiracy statutes that do not apply,” he tweeted. “It’s not a conspiracy to use free speech and attempt to participate in the political system no matter how badly our garbage elite wants it to be.” (RELATED: ‘Reduces To A Haiku’: Jonathan Turley Says Many Of The Charges In Trump’s Jan. 6 Indictment Are ‘Protected Speech’)
Former New York federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy said Smith had to stretch the statutes to capture Trump’s behavior. “[Smith] has extravagantly stretched these statues in order to try and capture this behavior and that’s because this is a proxy for what should have been a political impeachment process they’re leaving to the criminal justice system, the failure of Congress to carry out a successful impeachment,” McCarthy said.
“If you’ve got evidence that Trump committed incitement, then charge him with incitement,” he continued, adding that they “don’t have a prayer of a case like that.” Constitutional lawyer Robert Barnes tweeted the indictment “threatens core First Amendment freedoms in an unprecedented manner, by making legal advocacy a crime, advocacy to Congress a crime, advocacy to courts a crime, advocacy to the public a crime.”
We already know that Trump was denied the right to defend himself when the left falsely impeached him- I’m thinking he will be denied now too, or at least severely hamstrung
The ball is in joe’s court....he’s the one doing the indicting.
Let HIM prove he did, in fact, win the election.
They’re piling it on hoping Trump or his support’s break and run
I will write DJT in on the ballot if need be.
And yet it only gets stronger.
Yes but they were wearing costumes so that proves they support the KKK....
What nonsense
It’s obvious even to me that the legally prudent first step is a motion to dismiss the case as a gross violation of the First Amendment. Is Trump’s atty posturing, or are they going to delay the such a motion until AFTER the subpoenas and discovery have occured (which leaves this hanging over Trump’s head during the campaign)? If the latter, Trump truly places the nation above himself. The Judge would have to approve the subpoenas and demands for docs and depositions. Since she is a Dem team member, I can’t see her allowing trump to get what he wants out of this.
A jury of your peers?
We’ll see.
Nice comeback.
Jack Smith doesn’t care jack squat about how the court cases progress at this point. He knows they will all be kicked out in the end. He and the DOJ only want to stretch these things out for the election, to roil the election, provide cover for all kinds of shenanigans, give democrats and the MSM talking points to attack Trump with. And the ghouls absolutelly glory in causing Trump trouble.
I love all of the articles that seek to review the indictments as though they are legitimate criminal prosecutions as opposed to the political persecutions that they are.
So has this Obama judge thrown Trump into the DC jail yet?
And Jack Smith may even have a future on MSNBC, as a result of these prosecutions. Win or Lose in the end, he is considered a heroic figure to the leftists, for taking on the hated Trump.
Remember the J6 tapes that Tucker Carlson showed on one of his shows right before Fox fired him?
It seems plausible that Trump’s defense team would HAVE to be given access to ALL of those tapes, in case some could become “ exculpatory evidence” in his trial.
Only in a country that abides by The Rule of Law.
Right on.
Good point.......nice catch.
The legal issues don’t matter. This is a political prosecution that will be decided on political grounds.
Charges need to be dismissed ASAP and Smith needs to be disbarred.
It’s in DC, they’ll convict.
A jury of your peers?
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can you really get a jury of your peers in a district that is not one of the United States of America since they are allowing non US citizens the right to vote.
jury pools are based on voter rolls, so who do you end up with to judge what US laws say?
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