Law Professor Thomas Healy Featured in National Press

Professor Thomas Healy, a nationally renowned legal expert on the First Amendment, appears in two major media sources, Wall Street Journal and The Poynter Institute for Media Studies’ PolitiFact. Healy, Board of Visitors Distinguished Professor of Law, was quoted for his analysis of the latest Trump indictment and a potential freedom of speech defense.

The Wall Street Journal article, Trump’s Lawyers Raise First Amendment Defense to Latest Charges. Will It Work? describes how the Trump legal team is invoking free speech as a defense to the Justice Department’s new indictment. Healy argues that this defense has no merit and is little more than a stalling tactic.  

"I think delay is part of the strategy here, and the First Amendment could certainly serve as a distraction, at least in the early stages of litigation," he said. "If Trump wins, he could try to fire Jack Smith and order whomever he appoints as attorney general to dismiss the charges."

In PolitiFact’s article, Trump lawyer’s claim that indictment attacks First Amendment rights is dubious, experts say, Healy explains why the free speech defense is unlikely to succeed. "Conspiracies and fraud are usually engaged in through speech, yet no court has ever suggested that these types of criminal charges violate the First Amendment," he said.  

Healy stated this principle "is upheld in federal courts every day, as defendants are prosecuted for fraudulent statements for material gain in a variety of contexts, such as insurance fraud, bank fraud, credit card fraud, securities fraud, and mail and wire fraud."

He explained that the First Amendment could have come into play if charges had included lying on the campaign trail, which might chill legitimate political debate, or related to inciting the crowd to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

If Trump were charged with incitement, Healy said, that "would require the government to prove that Trump’s speech was intended to, and likely to, produce imminent unlawful conduct."

The Wall Street Journal article is available here.
The PolitiFact article is available here.

Categories: Law