Indict the Media!
If the special counsel can charge Trump for "pervasive and destabilizing lies," why not the press?
When Alex Jones was found guilty of defaming eight families over his fantastical characterizations of the Sandy Hook school shooting that took the lives of twenty children and six adults, few defended his indiscriminate comments as an exercise of First Amendment rights.1
Implicating grieving private citizens in nefarious schemes of which they had no part can’t be categorized as a clear cut case of protected speech. Neither is yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre. Yet, to the tyrant, all revolutions begin with ideas—and that’s why the threshold for government to abridge “the freedom of speech” has always been very high in societies that value liberty.2
In fact, it’s almost ‘nonexistent’ if you’re talking about public figures who have to show “actual malice…with reckless disregard” no matter what the press might say about them.3 Clarence Thomas thinks it’s time to overturn the Sullivan precedent; journalists who would like to see Donald Trump in jail rely on it.4
Perhaps they should be careful what they wish for.
Jones’ culpability notwithstanding, the controversial commentator’s case was always going to be a trial run for what the media really wanted: special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of the former President for “a conspiracy to defraud the United States.”5
The latest in an obvious onslaught of politically motivated charges doesn’t charge Trump with ‘insurrection’ or ‘seditious conspiracy,’ not even incitement—but, as you can see below, “pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud."6