Trump’s Georgia Attorneys, Citing First Amendment, Ask for Dismissal of Indictment

Donald Trump's indictment in the Georgia election-racketeering case should be dismissed because he was exercising his First Amendment right to free speech, the former president's attorneys argued in a court filing Monday.

"Every single alleged overt act listed and count charged against President Trump seeks to criminalize content-based, core political speech and expressive conduct," Trump's Georgia legal team wrote in the Monday filing.

Trump is among 19 original co-defendants indicted in Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis’ sweeping election-racketeering case brought in August. Since then, four defendants have pleaded guilty as part of agreements with prosecutors: Georgia bail bondsman Scott Hall, and lawyers Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis. 

A trial date for Trump and his remaining 14 co-defendants, all of whom have pleaded not guilty, has not yet been scheduled. Willis proposed an Aug. 5, 2024 start date for the trial.

The filing by Trump's attorneys Monday follows wide-ranging Dec. 1 hearing before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee in which prosecutors and defense lawyers argued over eight separate motions to dismiss the charges or quash the entire case.

Trump attorneys Steven Sadow and Jennifer Little argued in the filing that, even if all the facts alleged by prosecutors are true, Trump's indictment should be dismissed in its entirety.

"This Court should hold that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, when applied to the core political speech and expressive conduct alleged in the indictment against a President of the United States, demands a pretrial remedy," they wrote, "and that remedy is dismissal of the indictment."

Trump "enjoys the same robust First Amendment rights as every other American," Sadow and Little said in the filing.

"The indictment here does not merely criminalize conduct with an incidental impact on protected speech; instead, it directly targets core protected political speech and activity. For this reason, it is categorically invalid under the First Amendment," the attorneys wrote.

In a statement Monday, Sadow said the filing "emphasizes that the charges against President Trump seek to criminalize core political speech and that the Fulton County District Attorney is prosecuting him for challenging the 2020 presidential election process which tens of millions of Americans recognize was flawed and unjust.”