{"id":2349678,"date":"2024-10-03T07:01:01","date_gmt":"2024-10-03T11:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jack-smiths-trump-lawfare-is-still-a-middle-finger-to-free-speech\/"},"modified":"2024-10-03T07:02:34","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T11:02:34","slug":"jack-smiths-legal-actions-against-trump-continue-to-undermine-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jack-smiths-legal-actions-against-trump-continue-to-undermine-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Smith&#8217;s legal actions against Trump continue to undermine free speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjack-smiths-legal-actions-against-trump-continue-to-undermine-free-speech%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2349678&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The\u2063 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dei-disaster-petition-circulating-within-secret-service-community-warns-of-potential-insider-threats\/\" title=\"DEI Crisis: Secret Service Petition Raises Concerns About &#039;Insider Threats\">article discusses concerns<\/a> regarding\u2063 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/states-push-to-rein-in-big-tech-as-federal-gears-grind-slow\/\" title=\"States Push to Rein in Big Tech as Federal Gears Grind Slow\">free speech rights<\/a> in the\u2063 context of\u200b Special Counsel Jack Smith&#8217;s\u200c prosecution\u2063 of former President Donald Trump.\u200d It \u2062begins with the\u200d assertion that the phrase \u201cliberty and justice for all\u201d \u2062from the Pledge of\u200b Allegiance and quotes Frederick\u2064 Douglass on the importance of the right to express thoughts and opinions. Smith&#8217;s prosecution \u2062alleges that Trump made false\u2064 claims about election \u200bfraud to disrupt \u2062the electoral process,\u200d which the article argues\u2064 may be protected under the\u200d First\u2062 Amendment. The author contends that prosecuting individuals for questioning election \u2064integrity threatens fundamental free\u200d speech rights.<\/p>\n<p>The article contrasts Trump&#8217;s claims with those made by \u200cother political figures, such as Stacey Abrams and Hillary Clinton,\u200b who have expressed doubts about election outcomes \u2063without facing similar repercussions. It points out that\u200d voting\u200c irregularities and allegations of fraud have been \u200cacknowledged by \u200bvarious \u200bsources, suggesting a disparity in how political speech is treated. The author also criticizes Smith&#8217;s\u200c narrative for attempting to stifle political discourse \u200dand warns against the potential \u200dchilling effect on free expression when questioning government actions.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>&ldquo;With liberty and justice for all.&rdquo; Those are the final six words of the Pledge of Allegiance. But, as Frederick Douglass once said, &ldquo;liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one&rsquo;s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>And if Special Counsel Jack Smith gets his way, the right to &ldquo;utter one&rsquo;s thoughts and opinions&rdquo; will cease to exist.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed Smith&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.dcd.258148\/gov.uscourts.dcd.258148.252.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">165-page brief<\/a> on Wednesday that, at its crux, alleges that Trump used &ldquo;false claims of election fraud to disrupt the electoral process.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;In the months leading up to the election, [Trump] refused to say whether he would accept the election results, insisted that he could lose the election only because of fraud, falsely claimed that mail-in ballots were inherently fraudulent, and asserted that only votes counted by Election Day were valid,&rdquo; Smith&rsquo;s pre-election filing claims. <\/p>\n<p>But it&rsquo;s highly unlikely that any of those things aren&rsquo;t protected speech. The First Amendment has extremely narrow exceptions for speech that can be prosecuted &mdash; and for good reason. Freedom of speech is indispensable to a free society. And with that freedom comes the right to question your government. Prosecuting Americans for questioning the government flies in the face of the First Amendment. Such lawfare prosecutions are designed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ambush-trump-spox-taylor-budowich-sues-january-6-committee-and-pelosi\/\" title=\"&#039;Ambush&#039;: Trump Spox Taylor Budowich Sues January 6 Committee -- and Pelosi\">chill political speech<\/a>, leaving only the approved messages of the ruling faction to be permitted.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s inherently anti-American, but nevertheless, Smith persists in his mission to gut the First Amendment.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The defendant and his co-conspirators also demonstrated their deliberate disregard for the truth &mdash; and thus their knowledge of falsity &mdash; when they repeatedly changed the numbers in their baseless fraud allegations from day to day,&rdquo; Smith&rsquo;s filing continues.<\/p>\n<p>But if claiming that an election is stolen or improperly administered is a crime, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/08\/15\/if-saying-an-election-is-stolen-is-a-crime-why-isnt-stacey-abrams-in-prison\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Stacey Abrams<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/21\/hillary-clinton-doubts-election-results-while-claiming-doing-so-is-treason\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hillary Clinton<\/a> should be in jail right now.<\/p>\n<p>When Abrams lost the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race to Brian Kemp by 1.4 percentage points, she said the election was &ldquo;tainted&rdquo; which led to the &ldquo;disinvestment and disenfranchisement of thousands of voters.&rdquo; Abrams went so far as to say she was not making a concession speech because to do so would &ldquo;acknowledge an action is right, true, or proper.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Hillary Clinton, who <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/10\/26\/four-years-later-bitter-hillary-clinton-claims-2016-election-was-stolen-from-her\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">claimed<\/a> the 2016 election was &ldquo;basically stole[n]&rdquo; from her, said that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/hillary-clinton-once-claimed-that-questioning-election-results-was-a-threat-to-democracy-guess-what-shes-doing-now\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">had Abrams<\/a> &ldquo;had a fair election, she would have already won.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>But of course such a conclusion is risible. Clinton, Abrams, and the dozens of other Democrats and leftists who have questioned the outcome of an election have every constitutional right to do so. <\/p>\n<p>Smith also alleged that Trump, for example, &ldquo;was on notice that there was no evidence of widespread election fraud in Arizona within a week of the election.&rdquo; Smith argues Trump should be prosecuted for claiming, in part, that &ldquo;non-citizens&rdquo; voted in Arizona&rsquo;s election. Notably, Arizona&rsquo;s Democrat election <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/10\/01\/oops-arizona-discovers-an-additional-120k-registered-voters-lacking-proof-of-citizenship\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">officials recently announced<\/a> there are roughly 218,000 voters on the rolls who never provided documentary proof of citizenship but have nonetheless been permitted to vote in both state and federal races &mdash; contrary to state law.<\/p>\n<p>What&rsquo;s more is that Smith implicitly acknowledges that while some votes may have been fraudulent, only the DOJ can decide when it&rsquo;s acceptable to speak out against fraudulent votes.<\/p>\n[[<strong>READ NEXT<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/12\/07\/no-the-georgia-vote-counting-video-was-not-debunked-not-even-close\/\">No, The Georgia Vote-Counting Video Was Not &lsquo;Debunked.&rsquo; Not Even Close<\/a>]\n<p>&ldquo;The defendant, his co-conspirators, and their agents spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won,&rdquo; the filing states. (PAGE 10)<\/p>\n<p>Georgia&rsquo;s Fulton County was <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/05\/09\/board-refuses-to-have-fulton-county-investigated-for-double-scanning-3000-ballots-in-2020-recount\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reprimanded<\/a> by the State Election Board in May after the state found the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ga-ag-says-he-wont-investigate-fulton-countys-illegal-conduct\/\" title=\"GA AG Says He Won&#039;t Investigate Fulton County&#039;s Illegal Conduct\">county violated election law<\/a> during the 2020 election. The county double scanned more than 3,000 ballots during the presidential recount. The Associated Press <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/fact-check-election-georgia-fulton-county-audit-346686441033\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">admits<\/a> while an audit of the 2020 election found the &ldquo;double counting of ballots,&rdquo; the &ldquo;error weren&rsquo;t enough to alter the election results.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>In fact, a recent poll conducted by <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/04\/30\/poll-election-shifting-percentage-of-voters-admit-to-illegal-voting-in-2020\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rasmussen Reports<\/a> found that 17% of respondents said &ldquo;yes&rdquo; when asked whether, during the 2020 election, they &ldquo;cast a mail-in ballot in a state where you were no longer a permanent resident.&rdquo; Such practice is illegal.<\/p>\n<p>A Pennsylvania man was charged in August for allegedly voting in both Florida and Pennsylvania during the 2020 presidential election, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/voting-fraud-elections-federal-pennsylvania-florida-22b9fd55414e8440fbea76373d607962\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Associated Press<\/a>. Meanwhile a report from Michigan&rsquo;s Office of the Auditor General found that 1,616 votes &ldquo;were attributed to people who were deceased as of Election Day.&rdquo; In 20 of those instances, &ldquo;a person who cast a ballot had died more than 40 days before the election,&rdquo; according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.detroitnews.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2022\/03\/04\/audit-debunks-dead-voter-theory-michigan-2020-election\/9373387002\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Detroit News<\/a> which cited the report. Others may have &ldquo;sent in their ballots ahead of the election but passed away before Election Day,&rdquo; according to The Detroit News.<\/p>\n<p>Even if fraudulent ballots were cast and counted at a level that wasn&rsquo;t &ldquo;outcome-determinative,&rdquo; they were still fraudulent. Trump had (and has) every right to speak out about it, regardless of the scale. <\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s also not to say that such small amounts of fraud couldn&rsquo;t alter other races. (Lest we forget that Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks narrowly won her 2020 election by just six votes. Imagine Miller-Meeks being prevented from questioning whether the election was free and fair even if a handful of the votes cast were fraudulent &mdash; or cast by dead persons &mdash; and swung the outcome of the race?)<\/p>\n<p>If Smith&rsquo;s lawfare efforts are successful, it could jeopardize future elections, making them susceptible to &ldquo;outcome-determinative&rdquo; fraud. If no one can question the results or administration of an election, there&rsquo;s little incentive for honesty &mdash; and no accountability means no consequences.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The right to express thoughts is vital for liberty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":2349679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/6219961958_f51291fba0_o-e1727915157617.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[32311,32463,42225,3634],"class_list":["post-2349678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-free-speech","tag-jack-smith","tag-legal-actions","tag-trump"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/6219961958_f51291fba0_o-e1727915157617.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2349678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2349678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2349678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2349679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2349678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2349678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2349678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}