An Ohio judicial panel rejected efforts to issue arrest warrants for former President Donald Trump and Ohio Senator JD Vance over their claims that migrants are consuming pets.
Last month, the Haitian Bridge Alliance filed a lawsuit against Trump and Vance for their “fearmongering that the legal Haitian immigrants to the Ohio town are eating their neighbor’s pets.”
“The Haitian community is suffering in fear because of Trump and Vance’s relentless, irresponsible, false alarms, and public services have been disrupted. Trump and Vance must be held accountable to the rule of law. Anyone else who wreaked havoc the way they did would have been arrested by now,” lead counsel Subodh Chandra said. “There’s nothing special about Trump and Vance that entitles them to get away with what they’ve done and are doing. They think they’re above the law. They’re not.”
“Like those who shout ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater, Trump and Vance do not color within the lines of the First Amendment,” Chandra wrote in the court filing. “They commit criminal acts.”
The court referred the case to Clark County prosecutor Dan Driscoll.
“The conclusion of whether the evidence and causation necessary for probable cause exists to commence a prosecution of the alleged offenses is best left in the investigatory hands of the prosecution,” the judges wrote in the decision, Springfield News-Sun reported.
They explained that consideration should be given to the “strong constitutional protections afforded to speech, and political speech,” adding that the lawsuit’s close timing to the upcoming presidential election means the court “cannot automatically presume the good faith nature of the affidavits.”
