SPRINGFIELD, OH (October 18, 2024)—Attorneys with Free Speech For People and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym issued a joint letter today to Daniel Driscoll, the Clark County prosecutor, in support of the Haitian Bridge Alliance’s recently-filed complaint seeking criminal charges against Donald Trump and JD Vance for dangerous, inflammatory, and repeated lies about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio. 

On September 24, the Haitian Bridge Alliance filed a criminal complaint in municipal court against Trump and Vance for inducing panic, making false alarms, and disrupting public services based on their repeated false statements about criminal acts allegedly committed by Springfield, Ohio’s Haitian community. They allege that, as a result of these false and dangerous claims, Springfield has experienced at least 33 bomb threats; evacuation and closures of schools, colleges, and public buildings; deployment of state troopers to Springfield; and threats to individuals, business owners, and elected officials. 

The Clark County Municipal Court directed Discoll to investigate and determine whether or not to prosecute Trump and Vance. The letter demonstrates that the First Amendment does not protect Trump and Vance from criminal liability for knowingly repeating false and dangerous claims about the Haitian community and that the statements predictably threatened their safety and jeopardized public security. 

The letter reads:  “Trump and Vance’s continuous use of their national platform to spread dangerous falsehoods that foreseeably cause widespread civic disruption against already marginalized communities falls squarely within the criminal charges your office has been asked to evaluate. The Haitian Bridge Alliance asks only that this office apply the pertinent criminal statutes to Trump and Vance as they have been applied to other defendants, and that both be held to the same standards as the other individuals who have been appropriately and successfully prosecuted under the criminal charges sought here. We hope that this office agrees that the law should be applied equally to all people. Trump and Vance’s positions of authority do not immunize them from the consequences that would fall—and have fallen—upon anyone else. We strongly support the Haitian Bridge Alliance and Jozef’s petition, believe that the requested criminal charges are supported by probable cause, and are justified by Trump and Vance’s severe criminal misconduct.” 

Read the full letter here.

Free Speech For People is a national non-partisan non-profit organization dedicated to defending our democracy and our Constitution. The organization serves as a leading force in the country in litigation to protect the right to vote and our elections and to confront corruption at the highest levels of government.

Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym is a Chicago-based law firm with a national practice dedicated to complex public interest litigation, including civil rights litigation. The firm has a long history of bringing cases in Illinois and across the country to safeguard fundamental constitutional and statutory rights.