Ex-DOJ officials: Trump 'deliberately distorting' 1st Amendment to 'advance the theme of political victimhood'

16 August 2023

Former Department of Justice (DOJ) officials and legal scholars are balking at Donald Trump’s free speech defense as the former president and his allies argue special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against the former president “is an attack on free speech and political advocacy,” the Guardian reports.

Trump’s attorney John Lauro made that claim during an Aug. 2 interview with CNN after prosecutors on Aug.1 unveiled a 45-page indictment in the DOJ investigation of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Trump, in that indictment, was charged with four felony counts, “ including conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding,” Politico reports.

“After pleading not guilty, Trump used one of his Truth Social posts on 3 August to charge that ‘ the Radical Left wants to Criminalize Free Speech!’ and cited comments from Republican allies echoing his claims,” the Guardian reports.

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That line of defense, according to the Guardian “is prompting ex-Department of Justice officials and scholars to criticize such claims as bogus and as threats to the rule of law.”

Per the Guardian:

… Former justice department officials, scholars and ex-Republican House members say Trump’s actions and schemes went far beyond free speech, and that Trump and his allies are weakening the justice system and could breed new conspiracy theories by making a first amendment defense.

Critics say Trump allies embracing his free-speech claims seem to be trying to cover themselves with the party’s base and to rationalize sticking with Trump, despite the indictment’s sizable body of damning evidence revealing Trump’s active role in unprecedented and illegal ploys to overturn the 2020 result.

Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general, told the Guardian, “Trump is deliberately distorting the critical difference between just saying things and actively doing things that have criminal consequences.”

“Obviously, he didn’t just talk about the idea that he won the election,” Ayer said. “The indictment lists several areas of conduct where he conspired and acted repeatedly to alter the outcome of the legitimate voting process that occurred. For Trump or others to now be claiming there is no difference between the two is to once again undermine the very idea that our society is governed by rules that people are required to follow.”

Former federal prosecutors, according to the Guardian “say Trump is playing fast and loose with the facts, and mounting a dangerous defense.”

“The indictment highlights how Trump and his co-conspirators relied on speech not just to speak their truth or rally their adherents, but to push hard, behind the scenes, to pressure others into assisting the charged fraud,” former federal prosecutor Daniel Richman told the Guardian.

Richman said Trump’s defense “is more for the crowds than for the courtroom” as Trump supporters “find it politically useful to wave the First Amendment banner.”

“… The effect is simply to advance the theme of political victimhood, and undermine trust in the judicial process,” Richman said.

Harvard government professor Steven Levitsky echoed a similar sentiment, telling the Guardian, “Republicans don’t believe this stuff.”

“Nobody believes conspiracy to commit a crime is free speech,” Levisky said. “It’s what they say because they can’t say they support Trump, despite the fact that he is a criminal and an authoritarian.”

Former Republican congressman Dave Trott told the Guardian that Trump’s distortion of the First Amendment is playing into the party’s anti-DOJ message.

“The GOP has historically been the law and order party, but I think their new strategy for retaking the House is to exacerbate the narrative that DOJ and the courts are biased and corrupt,” Trott said.

Read the full report at the Guardian.

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