Donald Trump attacked efforts by federal prosecutors and special counsel Jack Smith to bring a protective order against the former president, who faces criminal charges for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“They don’t want me to speak about a rigged election,” Trump said during a rally Tuesday in Windham, New Hampshire. “I have freedom of speech, First Amendment.”
In fact, Trump’s attempts at the local, state and federal levels to challenge the results of the 2020 election, won by then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden, failed to prove there was widespread fraud that would have changed the election’s outcome. Judges, state election officials and officials within the Trump administration, including then-Attorney General William Barr, have all said Trump’s claims of a rigged election and massive fraud are false.
In a four-count indictment issued by a federal grand jury earlier this month, Smith said that Trump “had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome determinative fraud during the election and that he had won” and was also entitled to challenge the results through formal and appropriate avenues, such as lawsuits and audits.
Trump’s “efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful,” Smith — who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee the federal Trump investigations — said. “Shortly after Election Day, the defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.”
The protective order would limit Trump and his attorneys from sharing of sensitive info related to the case. In their filing asking for the order, prosecutors included a Friday social media post from Trump that read, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”
Tim McPhillips, Kenichi Serino, Julia Griffin, Molly Finnegan, Travis Daub and Dan Cooney produced and edited this post.
Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app: https://to.pbs.org/2Jb8twG
Find more from PBS NewsHour at https://www.pbs.org/newshour
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2HfsCD6
Follow us:
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pbsnews
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/newshour
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/newshour
Facebook: http://www.pbs.org/newshour
Subscribe:
PBS NewsHour podcasts: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/podcasts
Newsletters: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/subscribe
