Former President Donald Trump’s legal team argued Monday that the indictment accusing him of unlawfully trying to reverse Georgia’s 2020 election results violates his First Amendment rights and should be dismissed.
The 77-year-old’s appeal comes as the Supreme Court is set to consider whether he holds immunity from federal charges in a separate case surrounding his attempts to remain in power after losing to Joe Biden.
“If there is any constant in our democratic system of governance, it is that the marketplace of ideas—not the mandates of government functionaries or partisan prosecutors—determines the scope of public debate,” attorney Steve Sadow wrote in a 19-page motion filed in Fulton County Superior Court.
“The indictment here does not merely criminalize conduct with an incidental impact on protected speech; instead, it directly targets core protected political speech and activity.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis slapped Trump with a 13-count indictment in August, alleging he violated Georgia’s version of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act with his efforts to win the Peach State.
Willis’ lengthy investigation into Trump was triggered by his leaked call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the 45th president stressed the need to “find” 11,780 votes — enough to reverse his loss.
Prosecutors have accused Trump of unlawfully conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and have cited several of his post-election machinations, such as the push for battleground states to approve alternative slates of electors.
But Trump’s legal team is countering that he mounted a permissible challenge to the results under the Constitution.
“Considering the context within which the speech was uttered— while challenging a presidential election—political speech was directed towards the state legislatures, state officials tasked with conducting investigations,” Sadow continued.
“It was directed at the bodies responsible for conducting government business, the bodies with the information in their possession, the bodies undertaking the investigations, and the bodies vested with the authority of adjudicating such complaints.”
Trump currently faces a total of 91 criminal counts against him across four separate cases, and has pleaded not guilty to all of them while denying wrongdoing.
He was one of 19 individuals initially indicted in the Fulton County case, four of whom have since taken plea deals.
Willis, a Democrat, rejected complaints by Trump’s team last week that the 2024 election should delay the case.
“If the prosecutor finds that they violated the law, they have an ethical duty to bring forth charges,” she told the Associated Press. “And so, this is a silly notion to me, that because one runs [for] office that your criminal case would stop.”