March 28 (UPI) — Donald Trump‘s defense attorney in the Georgia election interference case said during a hearing Thursday he cannot be tried for making false statements.
Steven Sadow, representing the former president in the case in Fulton County, Georgia, argued that the charges in the RICO indictment that directly involve Trump are related to protected political speech.
Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee led the hearing, which lasted about two hours. McAfee did not make a ruling on the motion to dismiss the case.
“I don’t think there’s any question that statements, comments, speech and conduct that deals with campaigning or elections has always been found to be at the zenith of protected speech,” Sadow said. “What do we have here? We have election speech. So one must determine immediately if that constitutes core political speech and I suggest that it does.”
Trump is accused of directing others to pose as electors — the “fake electors scheme” — in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. He is also accused of pressuring state officials into changing the result, including a phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to find 11,780 votes.
Sadow said the indictment relies heavily on the idea that Trump’s statements about the 2020 election being stolen are false. He argued that this is not reason enough to charge the former president.
Sadow also argued that false statements have a place, and can have a positive impact, in public debate.
“Even a false statement may be deemed to make a positive contribution to public debate,” Sadow said.
Donald Wakeford, chief district attorney in Fulton County’s anti-corruption division, scoffed at the argument.
“He’s not being prosecuted because he told some lies. Although it is interesting to hear the counsel for Trump tell us about the usefulness of lies,” Wakeford said. “It’s not just that he lied over and over and over again. It’s that each of those was employed as part of criminal activity with criminal intentions.”
Wakeford argued that Trump’s statements, tweets and conversations with alleged co-conspirators were to further the goal of violating the law.
“It’s not that the defendant has been hauled into a courtroom because the prosecution doesn’t like what he said,” Wakeford explained. “He is free to make statements and to file lawsuits and make other legitimate protests.
“What he’s not allowed to do is employ his speech and expression and statements as part of a criminal conspiracy to violate Georgia’s RICO statute, to impersonate public officers, to file false documents and to make false statements to the government,” he continued, referring to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Sadow said the statements made by Trump should not be cast as “false” but as “legitimate concerns” about the election.
“Would what the president said on those counts be protected speech? The answer is it has to be,” Sadow said. “The only thing that makes it fraudulent is the state saying it’s false.”
Sadow added that it is “unconstitutional to force an accused, whether it’s the president of the United States or anyone else, to stand trial on protected speech.”
Craig Gillen, the attorney representing defendant David Shafer, also made arguments for dismissal. Shafer is one of the alleged “fake electors” deployed by Trump. Gillen argued that Shafer was not acting as or impersonating a public officer because electors do not have tenure and are only appointed to serve for one day and one specific purpose.
Gillen also asked that the term “fake elector” be struck from the case, calling it a “really nasty” term. Wakeford noted that the term does not appear anywhere in the indictment.
