Legal experts from an advocacy group and a civil rights law firm on Friday called for a county prosecutor to issue criminal charges against former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance for their role in propagating lies about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio.
Constitutional lawyers with Free Speech For People, a Massachusetts-based advocacy group, and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, a Chicago-based law firm, issued a joint letter to Clark County prosecutor Daniel Driscoll in support of a criminal complaint brought by Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), a San Diego-based rights group, on September 24.
The complaint alleges that Trump and Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees, disrupted public services, made false alarms, and engaged in telecommunications harassment and aggravated menacing.
Last month, Trump and Vance repeatedly claimed that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were stealing pets to eat them—the claims, which had no credible basis, were widely derided as racist.