An Ohio judge is to hold a hearing on whether Donald Trump and JD Vance should be arrested for spreading false rumors that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs.
An activist group, The Haitian Bridge Alliance, is taking the criminal case against Trump and Vance and say that Haitian immigrants have received death threats after Trump said that they are stealing family pets in Springfield, Ohio.
The Alliance's lawyer, Subodh Chandra, filed a criminal complaint to the Clark County Municipal Court on Tuesday. The case is being taken under an Ohio statute that allows for private citizens to launch criminal cases.
Chandra's court affidavit says that Trump and Vance disrupted public service "by causing widespread bomb and other threats that resulted in massive disruptions" to Springfield's public services. The pair have also been charged with making false alarms, telecommunications harassment, aggravated menacing and complicity.
Chandra told Newsweek that, under Ohio law, if a judge does not order Trump and Vance's immediate arrest, the judge must hold a hearing to decide if the criminal case should continue.
However, Greg Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University in New York, told Newsweek that the case is unlikely to succeed, even if the judge agrees that state prosecutors should take over the case.
"It would be extremely difficult for the prosecutors to actually win the case against Trump and Vance," Germain said.
"Knowledge of falsity is difficult to prove when politicians spread rumors. The Supreme Court would likely recognize that politicians have qualified immunity for lies under the First Amendment—otherwise, the bare-knuckle election process would be hampered."
However, Germain said that highlighting Trump's "reckless statements" may be the plaintiffs' aim.
"While the Haitian Bridge Alliance has little chance of convicting Trump and Vance of a crime, they have made a political point by calling attention to their reckless statements. What matters is how all of this plays out in the court of public opinion," he said.
Springfield has been dominating the headlines over the past week after false claims were made that Haitian migrants, who are in the United States legally, have been killing pets and eating them.
These claims have been repeated by Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and Vance. On September 10, in his first debate with Kamala Harris, the vice president and Democratic nominee, Trump repeated the claim, saying: "In Springfield, they're eating the dogs—the people that came in. They're eating the cats."
New York University law professor Stephen Gillers told Newsweek that a defamation lawsuit may be a better option for the Haitian community.
"Some courts do allow citizens to file criminal complaints. Apparently, Ohio does. Whether the Trump/Vance statements fit the definition of a crime and whether, if they do, they are protected speech in any event, is a separate question," Gillers said.
"I was expecting a civil libel claim by Springfield Haitians, perhaps as a class action. While the Trump/Vance statements did not single out any individual Haitian, libel law will sometimes allow individual members of an allegedly libeled group to claim that the public will treat a libel of a group as about them and seek individual damages.
"Usually, the group is much smaller than the Springfield Haitian population, but Trump and Vance did not meaningfully qualify their accusations. Rather, they referred to Haitians as a group, so their statements can be taken to be about every Haitian in Springfield," Gillers said.
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more
