Constitutional Lawyers Back Criminal Charges Against Trump-Vance in Ohio

Legal experts from an advocacy group and a civil rights law firm on Friday called for a county prosecutor to issue criminal charges against former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance for their role in propagating lies about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio.

Constitutional lawyers with Free Speech For People, a Massachusetts-based advocacy group, and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, a Chicago-based law firm, issued a joint letter to Clark County prosecutor Daniel Driscoll in support of a criminal complaint brought by Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), a San Diego-based rights group, on September 24.

The complaint alleges that Trump and Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees, disrupted public services, made false alarms, and engaged in telecommunications harassment and aggravated menacing.

Last month, Trump and Vance repeatedly claimed that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were stealing pets to eat them—the claims, which had no credible basis, were widely derided as racist.

The two Republicans' promulgation of the false rumors led to 33 bomb threats in Springfield, as well as other threats on individuals and elected officials, according to the HBA complaint; state troopers had to be deployed to the town, and some schools and public buildings were closed or evacuated.

Friday's joint letter argues that Trump and Vance repeated the dangerous claims after they knew them to be false and that their statements predictably caused security threats; it characterizes this as "severe criminal misconduct."

"Trump and Vance's continuous use of their national platform to spread dangerous falsehoods that foreseeably cause widespread civic disruption against already marginalized communities falls squarely within the criminal charges your office has been asked to evaluate," the letter says.

"Trump and Vance's positions of authority do not immunize them from the consequences that would fall—and have fallen—upon anyone else," the authors also wrote.

The criminal complaint, called an affidavit, was filed under a Ohio law that allows citizens to seek criminal charges. It asks that the prosecutor find probable cause to arrest Trump and Vance.

A panel of local judges referred the matter to Driscoll on October 4, but so far he's not taken public action or set a date for a hearing, which Subodh Chandra, the Ohio lawyer that filed the complaint for HBA, has said is a requirement before a complaint can be quashed. HBA is keen to have such a public airing of the facts, the Los Angeles Times reported last month.

The letter from Free Speech For People and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym argues that free speech is not a valid defense for Trump and Vance in this case, as "the evidence overwhelmingly establishes" that their "speech was knowingly false."

"Trump and Vance made a calculated decision to repeat racist falsehoods... knowing their calls would activate their supporters and others into disruptive and violent action," the letter says.