Constitutional lawyers call First Amendment defense legally frivolous
By Nicholas Fandos, Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman
Feb. 5, 2021
WASHINGTON — Claims by former .. Trump’s lawyers that his conduct around the .. Capitol riot is shielded by the First Amendment are “legally frivolous” and should do nothing to stop the Senate from convicting him .. 144 leading First Amendment lawyers and constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum wrote in a letter .. Friday ...
“Although we differ from one another in our politics, disagree on many questions of constitutional law, and take different approaches to understanding the Constitution’s text, history, and context, we all agree that any First Amendment defense raised by President Trump’s attorneys would be legally frivolous,” the group wrote. “In other words, we all agree that the First Amendment does not prevent the Senate from convicting President Trump and disqualifying him from holding future office” ...
... the First Amendment, which is meant to protect citizens from the government limiting their free speech and other rights, has no real place in an impeachment trial. Senators are not determining whether Mr. Trump’s conduct was criminal, but whether it sufficiently violated his oath of office to warrant conviction and potential disqualification from holding future office.
“No reasonable scholar or jurist could conclude that President Trump had a First Amendment right to incite a violent attack on the seat of the legislative branch, or then to sit back and watch on television as Congress was terrorized and the Capitol sacked” ...
... the defense would even fail in a criminal trial because the evidence against Mr. Trump is most likely strong enough to meet the Supreme Court’s high bar for punishing someone for inciting others to engage in unlawful conduct ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/us/politics/trump-impeachment-defense.html
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