Trump and Vance’s lies are criminal, experts say

Legal experts from a civil rights advocacy group and law firm called Friday for a county prosecutor to bring criminal charges against former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance for their role in spreading lies about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio.

Constitutional lawyers from Free Speech For People, a Massachusetts-based advocacy group, and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, a Chicago-based law firm, released a joint letter to Clark County District Attorney Daniel Driscoll, in support of a criminal complaint filed by Haitian Bridge. Alliance (HBA), a San Diego-based rights group, on September 24.

The complaint alleges that Trump and Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees, disrupted public services, issued false alarms and engaged in telecommunications harassment and aggravated threats.

Last month, Trump and Vance repeatedly claimed that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were stealing pets to eat – these claims, which had no credible basis, were widely ridiculed and called racist.

The spread of false rumors by the two Republicans resulted in 33 bomb threats in Springfield, as well as other threats against individuals and elected officials, according to HBA’s complaint; state troopers had to be deployed to the city and some schools and public buildings were closed or evacuated.

Friday’s joint letter claims that Trump and Vance repeated these dangerous claims after knowing they were false and that their statements predictably caused security threats; he describes this as “serious criminal misconduct”.

“Trump and Vance’s continued use of their domestic platform to spread dangerous falsehoods with the potential to cause widespread civic disruption against already marginalized communities clearly falls within the criminal charges that your office has been asked to evaluate,” the letter states. .

“Trump and Vance’s positions of authority do not immunize them from the consequences that would fall on — and would have fallen on — anyone else,” the authors also wrote.

The criminal complaint, called an affidavit, was filed under an Ohio law that allows citizens to file complaints. He asks the prosecutor to find probable cause to arrest Trump and Vance.

A panel of local judges referred the case to Driscoll on October 4, but so far he has not taken public action or set a date for a hearing, which Subodh Chandra, the attorney for the Ohio, which filed the complaint against HBA, said it was a requirement before a complaint can be dismissed. HBA wants the facts to be made public, the Los Angeles Timesreported last month.

The letter from Free Speech For People and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym argues that free speech is not a valid defense for Trump and Vance in this case because “the evidence overwhelmingly establishes” that their “speech was knowingly false.”

“Trump and Vance made a calculated decision to repeat racist lies… knowing that their calls would incite their supporters and others to act in disruptive and violent ways,” the letter said.

Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).