Court Takes Trump Literally, Allows 'Incitement' Suit Against Him To Go Forward
It's going to be a long four years for Team Trump if the courts keep actually listening to the guy.
Donald Trump (Photo by Isaac Brekken/Getty)
Donald Trump could shoot a man in the middle of Fifth Avenue, and not lose any of his core, racist supporters. But that doesn’t mean the courts would look the other way.
A key governmental feature has emerged during these first months of the Trump presidency, and it’s that the courts actually listened to the President. They’re taking him seriously, they’re taking him literally, they’re basically acting like there is some connection between what he says and what, you know, happens.
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And it seems like the old con-man has been a bit flustered by being held to account for his mouth.
The latest example of this came down on Friday. U.S. District Judge David Hale ruled that Trump’s statements at a campaign rally that led to some protesters getting beaten up could be “incitement to riot, negligence, gross negligence and recklessness by Trump and his campaign.”
At a campaign event in Louisville, Trump confronted some protesters in his normal way. He shouted “get ’em out of here,” at which point the protesters allege they were punched and shoved by Trump supporters. Judge Hale writes:
First, it is plausible that Trump’s direction to “get ’em out of here” advocated the use of force. Unlike the statements at issue in the cases cited by the Trump Defendants, “get ’em out of here” is stated in the imperative; it was an order, an instruction, a command. Cf. NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 902 (1982) (“If we catch any of you going in any of them racist stores, we’re gonna break your damn neck.”); Hess, 414 U.S. at 107 (“We’ll take the fucking street again.”); Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705, 705 (1969) (“If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.”). Based on the allegations of the complaint, which the Court must accept as true, Trump’s statement at least “implicitly encouraged the use of violence or lawless action.” Bible Believers, 805 F.3d at 246.
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An incitement to violence is not speech protected by the First Amendment. You probably can say “fire” in a crowded theater, you cannot say “there is no fire, KILL the lying motherf**ker.”
I’m skeptical of extending the “incitement” rhetoric too far. I don’t believe public figures should be responsible for the actions of yahoos. Remember, it’s usually the police state that tries to blame the organizers of protests for any incidental violence that happens around the protest.
But it’s undeniable that there was something going on at Trump events that was scary and dangerous, and that the candidate himself was encouraging it and reveling in it.
Donald Trump acts like he can say whatever he wants and there will never be any consequences. That just can’t be how things work.
And that’s why this case is part of a larger trend. The Washington Post points out that the courts are listening to Trump more acutely than the voters did during the campaign:
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It’s merely the latest example of Trump’s team arguing that his controversial words shouldn’t be taken literally. But though that argument may have held water politically during the 2016 campaign, it has since repeatedly hurt Trump’s cause when his words have been at issue in legal proceedings.
There are the Trump supporters who actually want this man to do the bigoted and misogynistic things he talks about. But then there’s another category of people, I call them “Trump enablers,” who seem to think that Trump is just “talking like regular people talk.” Bizarrely, these people think Trump should NOT be held to the “words matter” standard, even though he’s got the biggest megaphone in the world.
The courts do not seem to be interested in enabling Trump to have word diarrhea while Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer say you didn’t hear what you clearly just heard. The courts seem to care about what the president says and does.
It’s going to be a long four years for Team Trump if the courts keep actually listening to the guy.
Nwanguma v. Donald Trump [Western District of Kentucky]
A judge rules Trump may have incited violence … and Trump again has his own mouth to blame [Washington Post]
Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.
