Trump lawyer: Ex-president cannot be charged for false statements
The charges against former President Donald Trump in the Fulton County election interference case should be dismissed because he cannot be criminally charged for political speech that is protected under the First Amendment, his lawyer argued Thursday.
“When you look at the allegations against President Trump, all of the allegations — all of the allegations — involved expressive conduct or speech,” Trump’s lead attorney, Steve Sadow, argued. And all of them “are political core value, political discourse.”
Thursday’s arguments, before Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, marked a return to the sweeping racketeering case against Trump and 14 co-defendants after more than two months spent examining DA Fani Willis’ romantic relationship with a subordinate.
In court hearings that were frequently testy and filled with salacious details about vacations, cell phone records and money, defense attorneys had argued that Willis and her entire office should be disqualified from the Trump prosecution. They said her relationship with lead special prosecutor Nathan Wade amounted to a conflict of interest.
McAfee denied the defense motion but said that Willis could only stay on the case if Wade withdrew, which he did just hours after the order was issued on March 15. Although McAfee is allowing the defense to appeal his order, he began working once again on the core of the election interference case, hearing motions by Trump and former state GOP chair David Shafer.
Sadow’s political speech arguments are similar to those raised by Trump’s lawyers in the federal election interference case in Washington. Fulton prosecutor Donald Wakeford asked McAfee to pay close attention to the order denying the challenge issued by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
In December, Chutkan found that Trump’s indictment did not violate the First Amendment.
“It is well established that the First Amendment does not protect speech that is used as an instrument of a crime, and consequently the indictment — which charges (Trump) with, among other things, making statements in furtherance of a crime — does not violate (Trump’s) First Amendment,” she wrote.
The Fulton charges against Trump — racketeering and 12 other felony counts — all stem from his political speech in trying to ensure the 2020 presidential election was not stolen, Sadow said.
“Clearly being president of the United States at the time, dealing with elections and campaigning, calling into question whether what had occurred, at least in the election of 2020 for president, that’s the height of political speech,” he said.