Krull: The First Amendment won't protect Trump from the consequences of lying

Donald Trump’s defense of his indefensible actions following the 2020 presidential election comes down to this — he believes he had a First Amendment right to tell lie after lie after lie.

Regardless of the harm his lies did to his followers who believed him, many of whom are now in prison.

Regardless of the untenable position in which he put his political party, the members of which now must either condone open insurrection or commit political suicide by angering the feckless former president.

Regardless of the lasting damage he has done and continues to do to this country, its Constitution and its institutions of self-government, all of which he, with his hand upon the Bible, took a sacred oath to defend.

None of that seems to matter to Trump.

But that’s not surprising.

Donald Trump’s only interest always has been … Donald Trump. He sees everyone else — wives, siblings, other family members, friends, partners, allies, supporters and employees — as dispensable, not worthy of reciprocal loyalty or even consideration.

He wanted to remain as president after he lost a free and fair election — one his own administration supervised — and he now has his lawyers contending that he was entitled to conjure up any fib or fable he wished to stay in office.

As a legal argument, his contention is nonsense.

The First Amendment does give us the right to say what we wish, but it does not spare us from suffering any consequences for what we say — particularly if we lie. We can say mean, hurtful and even professionally damaging things about others, but libel and defamation laws exist to hold us accountable if we are not telling the truth when we do so. The penalties for harming someone can go up considerably if we tell lies with malicious intent or if we just don’t care one way or the other whether we’re right or wrong.

The 45-page unsealed indictment of the former president on four counts demolishes his most destructive lies and makes a strong case that he knew he was lying all along.

The courts will weigh the former president’s rights against the damage he has done and arrive at a verdict. That is what courts exist to do.

In the meantime, it is possible for the rest of us to arrive at some conclusions.

The first is that Trump’s defense that he was entitled to lie is an acknowledgment that he lost the 2020 election. All his fulminations about how he was robbed were the equivalent of street theater, a fast-spoken hustle designed to part the rubes in his audience from their hard-earned cash.

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It was a con, plain and simple.

Just what one would expect from a career conman.

The second is that there really is no way for Trump or his fellow Republicans to win going forward.

The indictment left six co-conspirators unnamed, although the identities of most of them were easy to determine for anyone who read the 45 pages. They likely were left unnamed for a reason — so that Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team could try to turn them.

Smith and company have a lot of leverage at their disposal. Given that Trump’s defense now acknowledges that he and his allies lied repeatedly and likely knowingly, the co-conspirators who are lawyers face disciplinary action and possible disbarment — even if they avoid prison time themselves.

What are the chances that one, two or even more of the co-conspirators will flip and deliver still more damaging information and confirmation to the prosecution?

But, even if that doesn’t happen, what will Trump get if he prevails in court?

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He will have established a precedent that a sitting president doesn’t have to acknowledge defeat when he or she is beaten in a free and fair campaign— and is entitled to use any means, legal or illegal, ethical or unethical, to hold onto power.

What, then, is to stop President Joe Biden from doing the same thing if the vote doesn’t go the way he wants it to next year?

What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander.

Donald Trump probably never thought of that. He never seems to think beyond the horizon of his own immediate desires.

Many others — including his followers and other fellow citizens — have suffered from his amoral self-absorption.

Now, finally, it appears that Donald Trump may suffer along with them.

John Krull is director of Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Krull: Trump indictment shows he knew he was lying all along