John,

BREAKING NEWS: On behalf of Latino civic engagement organization Mi Familia Vota Education Fund and several voters, Free Speech For People today filed a lawsuit against President Trump and members of the administration in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The lawsuit, which names President Trump, Attorney General Bill Barr, and Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, is based on the defendants’ violent suppression of public protests opposing police brutality, the encouragement of white supremacist “vigilantes,” threats to send “sheriffs” and other law enforcement to the polls, the undermining of mail-in voting, and the rejection of the peaceful transfer of power. 

We argue that these actions constitute illegal voter intimidation under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, as well as unconstitutional suppression of speech and votes under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution. The complaint and a motion simultaneously filed with the court seek a preliminary injunction restraining Trump and the other defendants from continuing to engage in this unconstitutional and illegal intimidation.

President Trump and his administration have intimidated voters by violently suppressing peaceful protests, encouraging vigilante violence, discrediting voting by mail, sabotaging mail delivery to undermine voting, threatening to send law enforcement to polling places, and refusing to recognize the legitimacy of election results if Trump is not declared the winner. It is imperative that the court protect every American’s fundamental right to vote by blocking President Trump’s attempts to prevent a free and fair election.

Read the full complaint here.

In solidarity,

Ron Fein

Legal Director, Free Speech For People