Former President Trump‘s legal team filed a series of late-night motions against the federal charges he's facing in Washington, D.C., stemming from his efforts to subvert the 2020 election.
Just before midnight, the former president filed three motions to dismiss the case against him citing his First Amendment rights.
POLITICO has more:
Trump argued that the indictment — which charges him with conspiring to obstruct Congress' certification of the 2020 election, conspiring to deprive Americans of a fair election process and conspiring to defraud government officials administering the election — “does not explain” how he violated the laws he's charged with breaking. He says the charges violate his First Amendment right to petition government officials to act on his concerns about the 2020 election. He contends his acquittal by the Senate in an impeachment trial days after leaving office bars him from being prosecuted for related conduct. And he says President Joe Biden's reported statements about the case require an inquiry regarding selective prosecution, if not outright dismissal.
The filings, combined with an earlier motion to dismiss the case citing his “immunity” from prosecution for his conduct as president, represent Trump's full strategy for preventing the case against him from ever reaching a jury.
Another motion asks Judge Chutkan to remove “repeated references to the actions of independent actors at the Capitol on January 6, 2021” from his indictment, claiming Trump was not charged “with responsibility for the actions at the Capitol” and therefore the “allegations related to these actions are not relevant and are prejudicial and inflammatory.”
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