The Georgia judge overseeing the 2020 state election interference case against former president Donald Trump upheld the criminal indictment underlying the case on Thursday. Trump’s legal team had argued that his actions during the certification of the 2020 presidential election were protected under the U.S Constitution’s First Amendment. Despite these claims, Judge Scott McAfee rejected Trump’s argument.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged Trump and over a dozen other co-defendants with various offenses. These ranged from charges related to making falsely given statements to impersonation of public officials. Trump himself faces ten charges, with his legal team arguing that the actions underlining these charges amounted to political speech, and thus, were protected by the First Amendment. They contended that this removed the underlying basis needed to charge Trump.
Judge McAfee however, disagreed with Trump’s claims. He stated that the law does not protect allegedly fraudulent or criminal speech under the guise of government petitioning. Even core political speech addressing public concern cannot escape prosecution if it’s used to aid criminal activity. Consequently, McAfee found that actions and speech are not protected if they are “knowingly and willingly” undertaken in furtherance of criminal activity.
Responding to this decision, Trump’s legal counsel Steve Sadow expressed disagreement with Judge McAfee’s order, and confirmed they will continue to evaluate options regarding their First Amendment challenges. The ruling leaves room for the defendants to raise their “as-applied challenges at the appropriate time after the establishment of a factual record.”
This ruling allows the case against Trump and his 14 remaining co-defendants to proceed. Previously, McAfee dropped three of the 13 offenses Trump was originally charged with for “lack of detail”. Willis, who recently survived an attempt to remove her from the case, declined to comment on the Thursday ruling.
The timeline for this case is still unclear, as no concrete trial date has been selected yet. Further, Trump is also facing several other cases, including a criminal case in New York commencing on April 15.
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