Donald Trump's attorney argues Georgia election case should be dismissed

Donald Trump’s lawyers just asked a judge to throw out the election subversion case against him. It was the first hearing since that same judge rejected their efforts to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis from the case. She was notably absent today.

CNN’s Caitlin Polanco is outside the Fulton County Courthouse. Caitlin, what happened Dana, no ruling, no trial date, no Donald Trump or Fanny Willis physically in the courtroom today. But these hearings, this hearing are important ones in this case because this hearing is where defendants like Donald Trump today, and his team can argue to the judge why they think the law is not right, the facts are not right or this case needs to be dismissed.

The judge heard their argument because what it’s about here is the First Amendment. They have been arguing quite forcefully that what is charged here in this case in Fulton County, Georgia, racketeering, conspiracy against Donald Trump, that is just protected speech. It’s things that he should have been allowed to say under the Constitution.

His tweets, and his speech on the Ellipse, all do not amount to a crime under the law. Here’s a little bit more from Donald Trump’s attorney. She’s stayed out in court today what President Trump said speech-wise or expressed either through his speech or conduct, which is still freedom of expression because that’s false in the eyes of the state. It’s lost all protections of the First Amendment just the opposite.

If anything, under the circumstances, it needs more protection But the prosecutor, Donald Wakefield, was also able to argue to the judge that this case is rightfully charged, that the law is correct here in the way that the DA’s office has interpreted it, and that Donald Trump was making false statements that were false statements that were lies after the 2020 election.

And that is the core of the criminal activity, the criminal conspiracy that they alleged Trump is at the top of. Now, the judge didn’t say what he’s actually going to do here. He’s heard challenges like this before to this case from other defendants, said they were unsuccessful, and moved the case along to trial.

That is quite a possibility here because the other thing the prosecutors were arguing was to let the law stand and let the intent question come down to a jury. Dana, and Kaitlan, thank you so much for that reporting. I want to now talk to this panel of CNN all-stars Kristen Holmes, Paula Reid, and Sara Murray.

Nice to see you all. Welcome back. From Maternity Leave. We’re going to talk about the trial in a second, but I just realized all three of you are moms, with two babies. That is true. That’s very cool. Okay. And we all support each other and back and back to back to our regularly scheduled programming. Sarah, what was your takeaway from what we saw this morning? Well, look, I think the first thing is just the optics.

This is the first time we’re seeing the case get back to what the defendants allegedly did here. And you know, what’s actually on trial as opposed to Fanny Willis’s personal life was probably a cognition decision she made not to appear in person in the courtroom to let her team minus Nathan Wade, of course, is no longer with them, sort of run with this And, you know, look, I think that the Trump team made a valiant effort.

Can talk more about this than trying to say why everything that Donald Trump did is protected under the First Amendment and why you know, we don’t need to do a pesky thing like a trial. We can just toss this indictment out right now. But I think one of the points that prosecutors made is that a tweet itself does not have to be a crime.

A statement itself does not have to be a crime the way the racketeering law works in Georgia. These things need to be acts that further this broader conspiracy that Trump and his allies were involved in to try to overturn the 2020 election as you come in.

Paul, I just want our viewers to hear some of that argument from the chief senior D. A. Donald Wakeford, It’s not just that he lied over and over and over again as counsel for the defendant points out by listing all of the instances in the indictment that each of those was employed as part of criminal activity with criminal intentions Yes.

So the Trump team is arguing, look, this was a group of politicians talking about a presidential election. That’s political speech. The government, they’re saying, wait a second, there are limits on the First Amendment and the protections afforded to political speech. For one thing, this was false. Falsity is not a viewpoint that is protected.

The Trump attorneys then say no, the government doesn’t get to decide what is true and what is false. Look, good effort on the Trump team, but this is not something that is going to carry the day. But look, the Trump lawyers, they have an obligation to file every action for their client. And I’m told that in addition to the perpetual DeLay strategy, they’re playing a long game here.

They have to file these motions to preserve them for an appeal. So hypothetically, if this goes to trial, if there is a conviction, their hope is that there’ll be enough issues, enough mistakes over the life of this case that they can eventually kill this sort of a death by a thousand cuts, eventually on appeal. And I will add that, this isn’t one of those cases where those arguments that they thought were going to change the trajectory of the case.

When I’m talking to them, is it sure we’re going to be keeping an eye on it, but Donald Trump’s not there? We see him in court all the time when he wants to be there, if he wants to be at a hearing, they aren’t necessarily hanging their hat on this argument. But as Paul said and as one of his senior advisers told me, look, Donald Trump is paying these lawyers a lot of money.

They’re being paid to exhaust every single avenue possible and to really fight for that end game, which is to delay this trial as long as possible and delay this past that November election. And they do believe at this point, particularly following what we saw, the phony will, is that it’s going to be likely that they can get this delayed past the election. So on. Finally, Willis, as I mentioned to you and Caitlin did as well.

She was not in court today. This was the first hearing since that same judge said that she could stay on the case. She did speak out on Saturday about what happened. Let’s listen. I’m not embarrassed by anything I’ve done. You know, I guess my greatest crime is I had a relationship with a man. I don’t feel like we’ve been slowed down at all. I do think that there are efforts to slow down this train, but the train is coming.

You know, I think Fanny Lewis has definitely a defiant streak, sort of similar to Donald Trump in many ways. And I do think that her office really views this as what was a consenting relationship between two adults that got unfairly blown out of proportion. But the reality is this is now something that is still hanging over the case. You know, the case is proceeding. We saw that today. The focus was on the criminal case at hand and the defendants.

But the judge has allowed the Trump team to continue appealing. That’s something that’s going to hang over her. You know what the judge said in his ruling, which was not very flattering to Fani Willis or to Nathan Wade, still hangs over the court of public opinion. It still hangs over a potential jury pool. And so, you know, we’ll see what happens.

But I think the best thing for them was that this was a hearing that was focused not on funny Willis and her personal life today. Yeah. I mean, the idea that my only crime was right. Having this relationship will no one accuse you of a crime, but the judge has criticized your judgment, your professionalism, and called into question your honesty. Not a good sign when you’re heading into a trial like this.

But what I will say for her is least the case is moving forward. The judge is hearing motions. She said she’s going to keep pushing to trial. Final thought? I think, you know, it’s been said by them, the idea is that, yes, funny always gets to say on the case, yes, she is defiant. But when we play this out in the court of public opinion, that was a scathing ruling that Donald Trump is planning on using. Thank you all. Appreciate it.