Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" the day after Donald Trump was indicted by special counsel Jack Smith on charges related to attempts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results, former U.S. attorney and FBI official Chuck Rosenberg stuck a knife in attempts by the former president and his attorneys for saying the indictment is criminalizing speech.
According to Trump and his legal team, he is being persecuted for actions that are protected by the First Amendment which Rosenberg dismissed as "garbage."
Speaking with co-hosts Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist, Rosenberg cut right to the chase after host Geist brought up comments from former attorney general Bill Barr made during a CNN interview Wednesday night.
"There is a technical legal word for it, and Mr. Barr used it -- absolute nonsense," he began. "Think of it this way: speech designed to commit a crime, speech designed to commit a fraud is not First Amendment protected speech. If I lie on my tax return, that is speech, but it is not protected by the First Amendment."
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"Willie, if you and I are running a Ponzi scheme, and we solicit money from Joe and Mika and tell them we're going to invest it in our investment fund and, instead, we buy a boat, and an island and minor league baseball team, that is not First Amendment protected speech," he elaborated. "That's a crime."
"Instructing a witness to destroy documents is speech, but it's not protected by the First Amendment," he added. "So I completely agree with Mr. Barr on this point. That defense that the First Amendment precludes prosecution of Mr. Trump here is nonsense, it's garbage."
"It may work in the political arena, but it will not work in court. Period. The end," he concluded.
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