Stephanie Thacker, an Obama appointee, said a convicted scholar’s speech in a terrorism case and Trump’s remarks sound “the same.”
It’s been almost five years since President Donald Trump stood on the Ellipse and exhorted his followers to march on the Capitol as lawmakers were preparing to certify Joe Biden’s election victory. But that jarring prelude to the Capitol riot is still resounding in the courts.
Two federal judges hearing an appeal Friday in a long-running terrorism case seized on that provocative example as they tried to divine the line between First Amendment-protected speech and the punishable act of aiding and abetting a crime.
“What if a large group of people, angry at Congress, gathered on the Washington Mall, some of whom have firearms, and are known to have firearms, and a leader stood in front of them, here, right in front of them, not in another country, and said, ‘Go down the street and fight like hell. I’ll be there with you,’” said Judge Stephanie Thacker, an Obama appointee on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
__________
