Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, left, and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, appear on stage during a campaign event in Asheboro, N.C., in August (AP Photo/Chuck Burton).
The group that recently called for the arrests of former President Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance for perpetuating the “false and dangerous narrative” through “unrelenting lies” that Haitian immigrants in the U.S. legally have been “eating the cats,” dogs, and pets of people in Springfield, Ohio, has amended a memo in support of criminal charges to add a felony “inducing panic” claim and some analysis on the First Amendment.
Attorney Subodh Chandra on Monday, on behalf of immigration-focused nonprofit the Haitian Bridge Alliance and the group’s executive director Guerline Jozef, claimed that Trump and Vance, as evidenced by the latter’s remark about being willing to “create stories,” had a clear “motivation” in leading “an effort to vilify and threaten the Haitian community in Springfield” and that anyone else who “relentlessly made false alarms, disrupted public services, and induced panic” would have already been arrested.
“If anyone else relentlessly made false alarms, disrupted public services, and induced panic like Trump and Vance—resulting in 33 bomb threats; schools, colleges, and government buildings being evacuated and closed; fear for children and parents and parents having to care for their children at home; hospital lockdowns; cancellation of a 20-year-running community festival; threats to the mayor and his family; threats to a businessperson hiring Haitians; and fear by Haitians in the community including a father and kids held at gunpoint in their garage—they would’ve been arrested by now,” Chandra said. “Trump and Vance knew what they were doing and persisted even after the mayor, city manager, and governor said they were wrong. They must be held accountable to the rule of law like the rest of us.”
As Law&Crime reported earlier, Chandra filed documents in Clark County Municipal Court citing an Ohio statute that permits citizens to file an affidavit in court alleging criminal offenses, claiming that Trump and Vance ignored the statements of the Springfield city manager, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), “fact-checkers, press, officials,” and locals in order to “spread a false narrative that Haitians in Springfield are a danger.”
The Haitian Bridge Alliance, therefore, asked a judge to issue “independent findings of probable cause based on the facts presented—and issue warrant for Trump’s and Vance’s arrest.”
The latest filing not only adds a new alleged felony offense to the menu, but also attempts to make the case that Trump and Vance’s words were not protected by the First Amendment, beginning with the oft repeated by sometimes misunderstood falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater analogy.
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From there, the documents referred to the controlling Brandenburg precedent of 1969, which held that speech can be prosecuted if it is “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and “likely to incite or produce such action.”
“Like those who falsely shout ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater, Trump and Vance do not color within the lines of the First Amendment. Schenk v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (1918). They commit criminal acts. This was no accident. Trump’s and Vance’s criminal conduct was both directed to and likely to produce the effects seen in Springfield. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969),” the filing said. “Not only were bomb threats, evacuations, and chaos the likely outcomes of their actions, the results played out in real time for Trump and Vance to see. Trump and Vance had every opportunity to remedy the situation. Trump or Vance could have acted at any time to quell the disaster they caused in Springfield, but to them the effects of their conduct were, as Trump said, not ‘real problems.””
Rather than listening to Springfield officials, the memo said, Trump and Vance “continued to double, triple, and quadruple down on their false claims,” allegedly “highlight[ing] their criminal purpose in spreading these lies.”
The memo asserted that warrants should be issued swiftly “before Trump fulfills his threat to visit Springfield—despite Mayor Rob Rue’s request that he not do so—so that he may be arrested upon arrival for his criminal acts.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung previously told Law&Crime that Trump was “rightfully highlighting the failed immigration system that Kamala Harris has overseen, bringing thousands of illegal immigrants pouring into communities like Springfield and many others across the country.”
Read the latest filing here.
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