By Katelynn Richardson
Daily Caller News Foundation
The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s Georgia racketeering case declined Thursday to dismiss charges based on the First Amendment.
Trump’s attorneys argued in a December motion that the indictment “directly targets core protected political speech and activity,” urging the judge to dismiss the charges as violations of the First Amendment. But Judge Scott McAfee found that the state “alleged more than mere expressions of a political nature,” writing that the defendants did not find “any authority that the speech and conduct alleged is protected political speech.”
“Although the Defendants characterize the relevant speech or actions as petitions to Congress regarding the validity of electors which must be afforded constitutional protection, at this stage the Court must consider the method and manner of the criminal enterprise as alleged in the indictment,” the judge wrote Thursday.
NEW: Judge McAfee denies Trump’s efforts to throw out criminal charges in Fulton County on First Amendment grounds.
Read the order: https://t.co/jsH6EYF1T1
— Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) April 4, 2024
During a hearing last week, Trump’s attorney told McAfee there was no “underlying basis” for the case other than protected speech. He said that even false statements are protected, pointing to the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Alvarez.
McAfee wrote in his ruling that the allegations contained in the indictment “do not suggest that this prosecution comes solely because it believes the speech was inaccurate.”
“Instead, the indictment avers throughout that the Defendants acted ‘willfully’ and ‘knowingly,’ and that they impacted matters of governmental concern,” he wrote. “These are not legal conclusions, but issues of fact.”
McAfee left open the possibility of defendants raising “similar as-applied challenges at the appropriate time after the establishment of a factual record.”
“President Trump and other defendants respectfully disagree with Judge McAfee’s order and will continue to evaluate their options regarding the First Amendment challenges,” Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead defense counsel, said in a statement. “It is significant that the court’s ruling made clear that defendants were not foreclosed from again raising their ‘as-applied challenges at the appropriate time after the establishment of a factual record.”
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].
SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!
The post Judge claims Trump’s comments not ‘protected political speech’ appeared first on WND.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Around the Web
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://www.wnd.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.