'Attack on free speech': Trump's lawyer outlines his defense for new indictment

Former President Donald Trump's attorney, John Lauro, is trying out a new line of legal defense following the former president's indictment in the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election: the whole thing is a plot to stifle Trump's political speech.

"[Trump] was asking for the secretary of state to identify votes that were not counted properly and factor that in," Lauro told CNN's Kaitlan Collins in an interview. "And by the way, that discussion took place with dozens of people on a phone call with lawyers involved, and no one was suggesting doing anything illegal and no one during that call said, Mr. President, that's beyond the bounds."

"This is politics. This indictment is about pure politics," Lauro continued. "We engage in vigorous debate in this country about politics. What we don't do is criminalize political speech. This indictment is a game changer. It's the first time that we've taken political speech and said, we're going to criminalize it. By the party that's in control against the party that's contesting the next election, where the two individuals involved are going to be running for office. That is an incredible set of circumstances."

However, in a subsequent CNN panel, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig laid out key reasons why this legal strategy is likely to fall flat.

"Interesting take," said Honig. "I'm unconvinced by the First Amendment argument and here's why. Even if you take it as a given that the First Amendment it is extremely broad, especially in the realm of political speech, it's simply not true that, to quote the lawyer there, as he said, First Amendment protects all speech. That's not true. One of the lines, even if you go all the way out to the margins, is fraud. Now, lying itself is usually protected by the First Amendment, but lying to steal something, that is criminal and that is fraud, and the theory made in this indictment is that he lied in order to steal the election."

"There's also factual problems," said Honig. "One being a lot of these statements in the indictment were not made behind a podium or not made to the media. They were made by Donald Trump and others behind the scenes to try to influence people. And so there's much less of a First Amendment concern there. But I think that's a really fascinating insight into the way they intend to defend the case."

Watch the video below or at the link here.

Trump's lawyer frames indictment as attack on free speech youtu.be