Attorneys for former President Donald Trump asked a Georgia judge on Dec. 18 to toss the former president’s 2020 election criminal racketeering case because his comments were political speech protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment.
The former president and more than a dozen other people were indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, by District Attorney Fani Willis, who accused them of conspiring to overturn the election in the state.
Several defendants in the case have pleaded guilty in exchange for more lenient punishment, although President Trump and the remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty and deny wrongdoing.
On Dec. 18, the former president’s lawyers said that even if the facts that the prosecutors have alleged are true, a judge should dismiss the indictment as a violation of his core First Amendment rights.
“This Court should hold that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, when applied to the core political speech and expressive conduct alleged in the indictment against a President of the United States, demands a pretrial remedy and that remedy is dismissal of the indictment,” the lawyers said.
But Ms. Willis’s case “does not merely criminalize conduct with an incidental impact on protected speech,” they said. “Instead, it directly targets core protected political speech and activity. For this reason, it is categorically invalid under the First Amendment.”
Ms. Willis has said she is seeking an August trial date for President Trump and the remaining co-defendants, a time frame that would put the current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in court defending himself in the months, weeks, and even days leading up to the November general election.
Trump lawyer Steve Sadow has said that if the former president is the nominee, this would be “the most effective election interference in the history of the United States.”
Ms. Willis’s team has also said they want to have a single trial for the rest of the defendants. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the case, has expressed skepticism about the idea of trying too many people at once.
He said earlier this month that even 12 people at once could be a stretch.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys have been exchanging evidence. Pretrial motions for most of the defendants are due early next month.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Ms. Willis said she believes more of the co-defendants will take plea deals, although she didn’t elaborate.
Attorney Sidney Powell, Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, attorney Kenneth Chesebro, and bail bondsman Scott Hall have taken plea deals in exchange for guilty pleas.
The four were required to write an apology to the citizens of Georgia as a condition of the plea agreement.
The case is one of four criminal prosecutions brought against President Trump this year, and it has significant overlap with the indictment brought in Washington by Mr. Smith.
Ms. Willis wouldn’t say whether her office had been in contact with Mr. Smith, but she seemed to indicate that she had no reason to seek help from him.
Trial During Campaign?
During a hearing earlier this month, Mr. Sadow questioned holding a Fulton County trial during the middle of the 2024 campaign.“Can you imagine the notion of the Republican nominee for president not being able to campaign for the presidency because he is, in some form or fashion, in a courtroom defending himself?” he said at the hearing.
Prosecutor Nathan Wade rejected his arguments during the hearing.
“This trial does not constitute election interference,” he said.
“This is moving forward with the business of Fulton County. I don’t think that it in any way impedes defendant Trump’s ability to campaign or whatever he needs to do in order to seek office,” he later added.
Asked by the judge whether President Trump could be tried in 2025 if he were to be elected president next November, Mr. Sadow said he believes that the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause and presidential duties would mean that he couldn’t be put on trial until he was out of office.
