Trump lawyers argue that even his ‘lies’ are protected in Georgia election interference case

An attorney for former President Donald Trump argued in a Georgia court on Thursday that the election interference charges in the state against him should be thrown out because his statements are protected by the First Amendment.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee heard arguments from Trump attorney Steven Sadow, who claimed that without Mr Trump’s statements, no charges would have been brought.

The prosecution for the state argued that Mr Trump’s lies were used to push a criminal conspiracy and that Mr Trump has not been charged for lying, “he has been charged for lying to the government” as part of a “pattern of criminal conduct”.

Mr Sadow filed a motion late last year arguing that Mr Trump’s false claims of election fraud were political speech, and as such, he should never have been indicted in the first place.

Mr Trump was indicted in the state alongside 18 others last August in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation into the attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. In 2020, President Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win Georgia in a presidential race since Bill Clinton in 1992.

Mr Sadow wrote late last year that “The core political speech and expressive conduct alleged in this indictment against President Trump are protected from government regulation and thus criminal prosecution by the State”.

“Criminalizing President Trump’s speech and advocacy disputing the outcome of the election—while speech endorsing the election’s outcome is viewed as unimpeachable—is thus blatant viewpoint discrimination,” he added at the time.

The case got a bit of a restart on Thursday after two months of hearings into Ms Willis’ relationship with former lead prosecutor