Rep. Raskin Torpedoes Trump’s Free Speech Defense: ‘The First Amendment Does Not Create Some Superpower Immunity From Impeachment’

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the House Lead Impeachment Manager, used his experience as a law professor to knock down former President Donald Trump’s attempt to offer a free speech defense in his second impeachment trial.

“There is no First Amendment defense to impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors,” said Raskin, who was a constitutional law professor at American University’s Washington College of Law before he was elected to Congress. He rejected Trump’s argument on this topic as “absurd,” a “smoke screen,” and “a completely irrelevant distraction” from the proper legal standard.

Raskin also addressed Trump’s habit of twisting facts. “He tried to pull off the biggest election fraud in American history by overturning the results of the 2020 election even as he insisted that his own fraud was in fact an effort to ‘stop the steal,’ to stop a fraud.”

“As a matter of law, as a matter of logic, President Trump’s brazen attempt to invoke the First Amendment now won’t hold up in any way,” Raskin added, explaining that the president isn’t just any regular citizen, but “swears an oath as president that nobody else swears…promis[ing] to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and our government institutions and our people.”

Raskin noted that private citizens are free under the First Amendment to advocate for totalitarianism or succession, or swear allegiance to a foreign leader or government, and cannot be prosecuted for such speech, but it would be “simply inconceivable, unthinkable” for a president to do any of those things and not be impeached.

Accepting Trump’s free speech argument, Raskin argued, “would leave the nation powerless to respond a president who uses the unmatched power, privilege, and prestige of his or her office, the famous bully pulpit in ways that risk the ruin of the republic.”

It was just plain “common sense,” he said, that the First Amendment protections are justifiably limited when it comes to public servants, noting that teachers, police officers, firefighters, etc. can all be fired from their jobs if they advocate for totalitarianism or treason, because that would be a violation of their duties of office.

In fact, he said, Trump himself had fired government officials because he didn’t like what they said or wrote.

Raskin then quoted former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on how the First Amendment affects those in public office: “You can’t ride with the cops but root for the robbers.” Similarly, “[w]hen it comes to the peaceful transfer of power to the rule of law to respecting election outcomes, our president, whoever he or she is, must choose the side of the Constitution. Must. And not the side of the insurrection or the coup or anybody who’s coming against us…there’s nothing in the First Amendment or anywhere else in the constitution that can excuse your betrayal of your oath of office. It’s not a free speech question.”

Trump, argued Raskin, wasn’t just a man falsely crying “Fire!” in a crowded theater, but worse: “He is like the now proverbial municipal fire chief who incites a mob to go set the theater fire, and not only refuses to put out the fire, but encourages the mob to keep going as the blaze spreads. We would hold that fire chief accountable. We would forbid him from that job ever again. And that’s exactly what must happen here.”

Trump’s conduct, he continued, “represented the most devastating and dangerous assault by a government official on our Constitution — including the First Amendment — in living memory.”

“The First Amendment does not create some superpower immunity from impeachment for a president who attacks the Constitution in word and deed while rejecting the outcome of an election he happened to lose,” said Raskin as he wrapped up his argument, pointing out that Trump had been the one to attack the First Amendment, by attempting to thwart the will of the voters, and by attempting to stop Congress from exercising their speech and debate during the certification vote.

“There’s no merit to any of the empty free speech rhetoric you may hear from President Trump’s lawyers,” concluded Raskin. “He attacked the First Amendment. He attacked the Constitution. He betrayed his oath of office. Presidents don’t have any right to do that…The precedent he asked you to create, which would allow any future president to do precisely what he did, is self-evidently dangerous.”

“The president lacks any First Amendment excuse or defense or immunity. He incited a violent insurrection against our government. He must be convicted.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.