The Guardian reports prominent conservatives are attacking U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi for pledging to “absolutely target” people who use “hate speech” in the wake of the killing of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk.
Bondi declared on a podcast hosted by Katie Miller, the wife of the right-wing White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, that there is “free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society”.
The U.S. attorney also went so far as to threaten to prosecute an Office Depot employee who allegedly refused to print flyers for a vigil for Kirk.
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But legal experts and conservative pundits are condemning the comments because there is no “hate speech” exception in the First Amendment right to speech, so targeting people for frank or even hurtful comments is unconstitutional.
“Get rid of her. Today. This is insane. Conservatives have fought for decades for the right to refuse service to anyone. We won that fight. Now Pam Bondi wants to roll it all back for no reason,” said conservative pundit Matt Walshposting on X
Conservative commentator Erick Erickson, also writing on X, said: “Our Attorney General is apparently a moron. ‘There’s free speech and then there is hate speech.’ No ma’am. That is not the law.”
Savanah Hernandez, a commentator with Turning Point, described Bondi’s statement as the “most destructive phrase that has ever been uttered … She needs to be removed as attorney general now.”
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Heidi Kitrosser, a Northwestern University law professor, told the Guardian that Bondi’s talk of targeting people who use “hate speech” is not legal because the “first amendment creates very, very strong protections from punishment for speech that’s offensive or for speech with which people disagree.”
“The bar for punishing speech based on content, and especially based on viewpoint, is extremely, extremely high,” Kitrosser said.