Trump’s attorney: Georgia election case infringes on Trump’s First Amendment rights
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The lead attorney for former President Donald Trump sought to dismiss the Georgia election interference case Thursday on the grounds that it violates Trump’s First Amendment rights.
“I don’t think there’s any question that statements, comment, speech, expressive conduct that deals with campaigning or elections has always been found to be at the zenith of protected speech,” Trump’s head attorney, Steve Sadow, said in the Fulton County courtroom on Thursday, per ABC News.
“The only reason it becomes unprotected in the State’s opinion is because they call it false,” he added.
Fulton County Prosecutor Donald Wakeford argued that Trump’s comments related to the charges should not be protected under the First Amendment, saying that the former president’s comments were aligned with criminal activity
“He’s never been prosecuted for lying,” Wakeford said, according to CNN. “He’s been prosecuted for lying to the government.”
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee heard both arguments in the case initially brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Trump and 18 co-defendants have been charged related to their alleged attempts in Georgia to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Four of them have pleaded guilty.
“It’s not just that they were false. It’s not that the defendant has been hauled into a courtroom because the prosecution doesn’t like what he said,” Wakeford said, per The Associated Press. “What he is not allowed to do is to employ his speech and his expression and his statements as part of a criminal conspiracy to violate Georgia’s RICO statute, to impersonate public officers, to file false documents, to make false statements to the government.”
The prosecution pointed out that U.S. District Court judge Tanya Chutkan, in Washington, D.C., had previously dismissed the claim that the First Amendment protects Trump from criminal prosecution for his attempts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election in a separate indictment.
McAfee did not make a ruling in court on Thursday and has yet to set a trial date. The Georgia election interference case is one of four criminal indictments that Trump is facing as he campaigns against President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election.
