Trump may be shielded from riot charges by Klan speech case
David Yaffe-Bellany and Bob Van Voris
Bloomberg
A 1969 Supreme Court ruling that tossed the conviction of a Ku Klux Klan leader may also shield President Donald Trump from prosecution for inciting last week’s Capitol riot, leaving few alternatives to hold him accountable if impeachment efforts fail.
At the rally preceding the riot, Trump gave an inflammatory speech, urging the crowd to go to the Capitol and demand legislators address his baseless claims of election fraud. He asked his supporters to “show strength” and “fight much harder.” Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and U.S. Representative Mo Brooks also spoke ahead of the riot, which led to five deaths.
I didn’t really want to write this article since I’ll probably be banned faster from big tech than expected, but as a lawyer whose favorite area of law is constitutional law, I see it as my duty. The left is trying to get rid of President Trump before the end of his term, saying he incited an insurrection in the speech
he gave near the White House on January 6. House Democrats have drafted Articles of Impeachment
with over 150 sponsors. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi compared Trump’s actions to those of President Nixon’s in Watergate. Dozens of Democrats and some Republicans are also calling on Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet to remove Trump through the 25th Amendment, saying he is no longer fit for office.
The president did not incite violence: WSJ Op-Ed – White House Dossier whitehousedossier.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from whitehousedossier.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In 1964, an Ohio Ku Klux Klan leader named Clarence Brandenburg told a Cincinnati-based reporter that his hate group would soon be holding a rally in a rural area of Hamilton County. In the filmed portions of that rally, which later became the focus of legal prosecution, robed men, some with guns, could be seen burning a cross and making speeches, infamously demanding “revengeance” against blacks (they used another word, of course), Jews, and the white politicians who were supposedly betraying their own “caucasian race.” They also revealed a plan for an imminent march on Washington, DC.
In American First-Amendment jurisprudence, Brandenburg’s name is now a byword for the test that is used in assessing the validity of laws against inflammatory speech especially speech that can lead to the sort of hateful mob activity that played out at the US Capitol last Wednesday.
By Bill Donohue | January 11, 2021 | 2:56pm EST
Featured is the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)
The censoring of Parler by Amazon, Google, and Apple is the most serious assault on freedom of speech we have ever seen by private companies in American history. Instead of addressing those who are responsible for abusing their free speech rights, e.g. those who are clearly fomenting violence, Big Tech is now seeking to censor conservative voices in general.
For justification, they are following the lead of pundits and activists who are blaming President Trump and his supporters for the violence that took place last week in Washington, D.C. The argument is more than absurd it is pernicious.