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"Free speech advocate" Todd Blanche moves on from enabling child sexual abusers to threatening to prosecute protestors
POLITICO @politicoDeputy AG Todd Blanche says ‘organized’ Trump protesters could be investigated
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/16/todd-blanche-pam-bondi-prosecutions-00567898
“Is it … sheer happenstance that individuals show up at a restaurant where the president is trying to enjoy dinner in Washington, D.C., and accost him with vile words and vile anger?” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Tuesday on CNN. “Does it mean it’s just completely random that they showed up? Maybe, maybe, but to the extent that it’s part of an organized effort to inflict harm and terror and damage to the United States, there’s potential, potential investigations there.”
As Trump prepared to sit down to dinner during a rare visit to a Washington restaurant last week, several protesters inside the business shouted, “Free DC! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!” They were quickly escorted out.
Asked Monday about the protest, Trump suggested Attorney General Pam Bondi should prosecute the participants, who he claimed were paid agitators. “I’ve asked Pam to look into that in terms of bringing RICO cases against them — criminal RICO,” the president said, referring to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
“This is not about words that are used. It’s about words that are used when they’re threatening violence, murder, when they’re threatening to kill people. That’s what we cannot tolerate in this country,” Blanche said.
Blanche went on to say the GOP is staunchly in favor of free speech. “The Republican Party and this administration believes in that more than most having been subjected to what we’ve been subjected to for the last several years,” he said.
...interesting case from 2023:
U.S. Supreme Court Clarifies the Standard for ‘True Threats’
In Counterman v. Colorado (June 27, 2023, No. 22-138) 600 U.S. __, the United States Supreme Court analyzed the First Amendment’s free speech protections in the context of “true threats.” While previous case law had established that true threats are not protected speech (and therefore may be restricted), the Supreme Court has now clarified that for a statement to be considered a true threat and thus unprotected speech, the speaker must have had “some subjective understanding of the statement’s threatening nature.” To meet the standard, the speaker must, at a minimum, act with recklessness.
While the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, it allows some restrictions on the content of speech in a few limited areas such as “true threats,” which are serious expressions that a speaker intends to commit an act of unlawful violence against a particular person or group of people. Even within unprotected categories of speech, any limit on speech raises concerns about the potential chilling effects such limits could have on protected speech. Accordingly, although true threats fall outside the bounds of the First Amendment’s protection, their prohibition must balance the benefits of banning dangerous threats with the risks of unintentionally deterring non-threatening, protected speech.
In Counterman, the Supreme Court held that for a statement to be a true threat, the speaker must have some subjective understanding of the statement’s threatening nature. The minimum standard for the speaker’s subjective understanding is recklessness, which is met by showing that the speaker “consciously disregarded a substantial risk” that the communication would be viewed as threatening violence. Counterman was prosecuted in Colorado using only an objective standard, where the state court required the prosecution to prove only that a reasonable person would understand the statements as threats. Because the state did not prove Counterman’s state of mind, i.e., that he was subjectively aware that his statements would be understood as threats, whether in actuality or using the recklessness standard, the Supreme Court reversed the Colorado judgment and remanded for further proceedings.
https://content.acsa.org/u-s-supreme-court-clarifies-the-standard-for-true-threats/
In Counterman v. Colorado (June 27, 2023, No. 22-138) 600 U.S. __, the United States Supreme Court analyzed the First Amendment’s free speech protections in the context of “true threats.” While previous case law had established that true threats are not protected speech (and therefore may be restricted), the Supreme Court has now clarified that for a statement to be considered a true threat and thus unprotected speech, the speaker must have had “some subjective understanding of the statement’s threatening nature.” To meet the standard, the speaker must, at a minimum, act with recklessness.
While the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, it allows some restrictions on the content of speech in a few limited areas such as “true threats,” which are serious expressions that a speaker intends to commit an act of unlawful violence against a particular person or group of people. Even within unprotected categories of speech, any limit on speech raises concerns about the potential chilling effects such limits could have on protected speech. Accordingly, although true threats fall outside the bounds of the First Amendment’s protection, their prohibition must balance the benefits of banning dangerous threats with the risks of unintentionally deterring non-threatening, protected speech.
In Counterman, the Supreme Court held that for a statement to be a true threat, the speaker must have some subjective understanding of the statement’s threatening nature. The minimum standard for the speaker’s subjective understanding is recklessness, which is met by showing that the speaker “consciously disregarded a substantial risk” that the communication would be viewed as threatening violence. Counterman was prosecuted in Colorado using only an objective standard, where the state court required the prosecution to prove only that a reasonable person would understand the statements as threats. Because the state did not prove Counterman’s state of mind, i.e., that he was subjectively aware that his statements would be understood as threats, whether in actuality or using the recklessness standard, the Supreme Court reversed the Colorado judgment and remanded for further proceedings.
https://content.acsa.org/u-s-supreme-court-clarifies-the-standard-for-true-threats/
...interesting discussion between NPR's Ari Shapiro and Mary Franks, professor of law at the University of Miami and president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative:
excerpt:
FRANKS: The standard that the court gave us was a recklessness standard, which means that Counterman is partly right here, that he's saying there needs to be some sort of subjective mental state on his part before he can be convicted for stalking, but didn't go as far as, say, he would have to intend that the communications that he was sending were, in fact, intended to threaten or to terrify the victim. Instead, the court said the recklessness standard is enough.
SHAPIRO: And so do you take that to mean the defendant's claim of mental illness might exempt him from consciously understanding the recklessness of his actions?
FRANKS: It wouldn't even have to be a mental illness question, as long as you've got someone who can say and prove that what they really intended in their heart of hearts was to communicate in a way that they thought would be welcome. Let's say a person who is deluded into thinking that he's in a relationship with another person when in fact they're not - that would be enough for a court to say, well, he didn't actually think that there would be a risk that this would be perceived as threatening. He thinks that it's, in fact, welcome, and that means that he cannot be convicted for stalking.
SHAPIRO: Are you surprised by this 7-2 decision?
FRANKS: Unfortunately, I'm not surprised by the decision. And it could have been worse. They could have gone with a standard that says you have to have the purpose instead of just recklessness. But it was fairly clear from the oral arguments that the court was not taking seriously the reality of stalking or the fact that it is already incredibly underenforced and that the kind of life that victims of stalking are resigned to is one in which their freedom of expression and their physical safety is threatened. It's quite clear that the court did not care about those values and only seem to care about making up a First Amendment protection for stalking.
SHAPIRO: So it's clear you agree with Colorado's attorney general, who said this decision will make it more difficult to keep stalkers from tormenting victims. On the other hand, the ACLU and civil liberties groups support this decision. They say this means that a misunderstood communication, like a reporter's request for comment or political hyperbole, will not be mistaken for a genuine threat under this ruling. What do you make of that argument?
FRANKS: I think that argument really does overlook the fact that we're talking about stalking as a specific form of conduct that is unwanted. And it may be true enough when we're talking about political statements or a one-off comment that someone might make that the appropriate level and the standard should be something like recklessness or possibly even purpose. But when we're talking about a form of abuse and terrorization that is really just about a nonconsensual communication to someone that is repeated and requires a course of conduct, it's really highly inappropriate to impose this kind of standard because it really is giving a blank check to stalkers who can just say, I am deluded enough to believe that these things are welcome. That isn't a political statement. There really isn't any reason to be deferential to this kind of speech simply because you're trying to protect a stray political comment.
SHAPIRO: Does this ruling signal any pattern to you about the court's thinking more broadly about free speech and the First Amendment?
FRANKS: It seems pretty clear that this court is determined to provide First Amendment protections to the worst of the worst, not just in the sense of we have to protect bad speech to protect good speech, but to completely discount the fact that the freedom of speech of the victims of stalking is being compromised. They're striking a blow for free speech of the people who want to terrorize and to stalk and to abuse, especially women and other minorities and other vulnerable groups.
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/27/1184655817/supreme-court-sets-new-standards-for-what-constitutes-true-threats
FRANKS: The standard that the court gave us was a recklessness standard, which means that Counterman is partly right here, that he's saying there needs to be some sort of subjective mental state on his part before he can be convicted for stalking, but didn't go as far as, say, he would have to intend that the communications that he was sending were, in fact, intended to threaten or to terrify the victim. Instead, the court said the recklessness standard is enough.
SHAPIRO: And so do you take that to mean the defendant's claim of mental illness might exempt him from consciously understanding the recklessness of his actions?
FRANKS: It wouldn't even have to be a mental illness question, as long as you've got someone who can say and prove that what they really intended in their heart of hearts was to communicate in a way that they thought would be welcome. Let's say a person who is deluded into thinking that he's in a relationship with another person when in fact they're not - that would be enough for a court to say, well, he didn't actually think that there would be a risk that this would be perceived as threatening. He thinks that it's, in fact, welcome, and that means that he cannot be convicted for stalking.
SHAPIRO: Are you surprised by this 7-2 decision?
FRANKS: Unfortunately, I'm not surprised by the decision. And it could have been worse. They could have gone with a standard that says you have to have the purpose instead of just recklessness. But it was fairly clear from the oral arguments that the court was not taking seriously the reality of stalking or the fact that it is already incredibly underenforced and that the kind of life that victims of stalking are resigned to is one in which their freedom of expression and their physical safety is threatened. It's quite clear that the court did not care about those values and only seem to care about making up a First Amendment protection for stalking.
SHAPIRO: So it's clear you agree with Colorado's attorney general, who said this decision will make it more difficult to keep stalkers from tormenting victims. On the other hand, the ACLU and civil liberties groups support this decision. They say this means that a misunderstood communication, like a reporter's request for comment or political hyperbole, will not be mistaken for a genuine threat under this ruling. What do you make of that argument?
FRANKS: I think that argument really does overlook the fact that we're talking about stalking as a specific form of conduct that is unwanted. And it may be true enough when we're talking about political statements or a one-off comment that someone might make that the appropriate level and the standard should be something like recklessness or possibly even purpose. But when we're talking about a form of abuse and terrorization that is really just about a nonconsensual communication to someone that is repeated and requires a course of conduct, it's really highly inappropriate to impose this kind of standard because it really is giving a blank check to stalkers who can just say, I am deluded enough to believe that these things are welcome. That isn't a political statement. There really isn't any reason to be deferential to this kind of speech simply because you're trying to protect a stray political comment.
SHAPIRO: Does this ruling signal any pattern to you about the court's thinking more broadly about free speech and the First Amendment?
FRANKS: It seems pretty clear that this court is determined to provide First Amendment protections to the worst of the worst, not just in the sense of we have to protect bad speech to protect good speech, but to completely discount the fact that the freedom of speech of the victims of stalking is being compromised. They're striking a blow for free speech of the people who want to terrorize and to stalk and to abuse, especially women and other minorities and other vulnerable groups.
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/27/1184655817/supreme-court-sets-new-standards-for-what-constitutes-true-threats
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
...and hurt my back compiling and posting that no one bothered to respond to.
