Donald Trump announced plans to hold a press conference next week to present a “conclusive report” proving that the 2020 election in Georgia was rigged. This comes after Trump was recently indicted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for attempting to overturn the election results in Georgia. Trump claims the report will show election fraud and lead to “a complete exoneration” of all charges against him. However, critics argue it has been over two years since the election and Trump has not previously provided evidence of widespread fraud. The announcement also comes just hours after Trump lashed out at Willis for indicting him now rather than earlier. It remains to be seen whether Trump’s promised report will actually contain new evidence that could substantively challenge the prior investigations.
“First Amendment issues” is a non starter and a Trump lawyer talking point. As Judge Chutkan so aptly said, “Mr. Trump, like every American, has a First Amendment right to free speech, but that right is not absolute.” There are lots of kinds of speech which are illegal all by themselves. With respect to a RICO case, when acts of speech are “overt actions in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy,” even otherwise benign speech can be illegal. Conspiring to commit a crime, and taking overt action to further that conspiracy, is a crime all by itself, even if the crime being conspired does not come to fruition.
Whether or not the conspirators’ “sincerely held belief” was that “the election was stolen” is irrelevant. If that is what you sincerely believe, there are already legal procedures to deal with that; take your case(s) to court. Which the Trump team did, with zero success. Just because you don’t like the outcome does not make doing an end run around the law and conspiring to change election outcomes in illegal ways “suddenly legal.”