The former president files several fresh motions to toss out Fulton County election interference charges
Attorneys for Donald Trump claim that the former president didn’t have “fair notice” that his attempts to reverse his Georgia loss in the 2020 presidential election could result in criminal charges against him.
A flurry of filings in Fulton County Superior Court on Monday argue that the sprawling election interference case against Mr Trump “consists entirely of core political speech at the zenith of First Amendment protections”.
Attorneys for the former president want the case dismissed on grounds that he has “presidential immunity” from actions while in office, that he was already acquitted for similar allegations in his second impeachment trial, and that he was never told that what he was doing in the state – where he is charged as part of an alleged racketeering scheme to unlawfully subvert the state’s election results – could be prosecuted.
Not only that, but he was definitely informed. White House counsel and other informed professionals were privy to a bunch of meetings where people were talking about these ideas, and they shared their opinions and sometimes got in shouting matches or resigned.
I think Trump’s brain genuinely cannot process the concepts of “right” and “wrong” as distinct from whatever he feels like doing, and so you could say: Yes, people whose job it is to be informed experts told him very clearly that these things were illegal, but his brain is so rotten and single-minded that he couldn’t absorb that their advice might be objectively true, any more than a dog can understand a “keep off the grass” sign.
Fortunately I think the chance of his lawyers advancing that as a defense is pretty remote.