Legal experts reacted to former President Donald Trump’s third indictment Tuesday, sounding the alarm on how the indictment against his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election prosecutes protected speech.
Trump was charged Tuesday with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, one count of conspiracy against rights and one count of obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, according to the indictment. Legal experts said the charges are built on speech protected by the First Amendment.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Smith issued “the first criminal indictment of alleged disinformation.” “If you take a red pen to all of the material presumptively protected by the First Amendment, you can reduce much of the indictment to haiku,” he said. “I felt that the Mar-a-Lago indictment was strong. This is the inverse.”
