Name the criminal statute he should be charged with violating.
Agreed that he likely does not have a 1st amendment defense. But you still need a specific criminal statute to charge him with. I am unaware of any that he has likely violated with his xenophobic remarks
Demagoguery that targets a marginalized group is an American tradition. It is unlikely that he committed any crime
Ohio could possibly sue him civilly because of the bomb threats that caused them to shut down schools. That’s the best I got.
If anyone is hurt over this, then they likely have standing for a civil suit (see Alex Jones).
Criminal it’s definitely more tricky. Trump will likely get away with telling his followers to storm the capitol, so I doubt “eating cats and dogs” comes close to the same standard.
Once upon a time, admitting to something like this would have been an impeachable offense. But that’s long sailed as something Congress would fairly enforce.
Trump will likely get away with telling his followers to storm the capitol
Because he didn’t. He very carefully didn’t. And 1A protections are extremely broad and extremely strong. Pretty much anything short of “You guys, go storm the capitol right now and overturn the election!” is going to be protected speech, and he didn’t say that. He carefully avoided saying that, intentionally.
What they’ll get him on as far as the attack (if anything) will be if he was involved in planning and staging it on the back end - if for example he was coordinating with people who were directly instrumental in shifting it from a protest at the steps of the capitol to an attack on the capitol in the hours, days, or weeks beforehand. Because his speech was definitely 1A protected.
