President Donald Trump defended his business dealings and lashed out at reporters over hate speech ahead of his UK visit.
WASHINGTON ‒ Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said people who noisily protest President Donald Trump could face criminal investigations if their actions are tied to organizations that seek to inflict "harm, terror or damage" on the president.
Blanche's Sept. 16 comments came after Trump this week threatened criminal charges against a small group of protesters who angrily shouted at the president ‒ calling him "the Hitler of our time" and chanting "free Palestine" ‒ while he was recently eating dinner at a Washington steakhouse and seafood restaurant.
"Is it sheer happenstance that individuals show up at a restaurant where the president is trying to enjoy dinner in Washington, DC, and accost him with vile words and vile anger? And meanwhile, he's simply trying to have dinner," Blanche said in an interview on CNN.
"Does it mean it's just completely random that they showed up? Maybe, maybe. But to the extent that it's part of an organized effort to inflict harm and terror and damage to the United States, there's potential investigations there."
Even before Blanche's remarks, Democrats and First Amendment advocates had sounded the alarm on free speech in the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk as White House officials vow to target left-leaning organizations that the Trump administration says has promoted violence.
Trump, in Sept. 15 remarks from the Oval Office, accused the protesters of being paid "professional agitators." He said he's asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to explore charging the protesters with crimes under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, which prosecutors often use to target individuals who are part of vast criminal networks.
"I've asked Pam to look into that in terms of RICO, bringing RICO cases against them, criminal RICO, because they should be put in jail," Trump said. "What they're e doing to this country is really subversive."
Blanche, in the interview, defended Trump's remarks and pushed back when CNN anchor Kaitlin Collins asked him whether women screaming at the president in a restaurant are truly inflicting "harm, terror or damage."
"You're asking whether there's damage done by four individuals screaming and yelling at our president of the United States while he's trying to have dinner?" Blanche said. "That can't be a serious question."
'Nothing wrong with peaceful protest,' Blanche says
Blanche, who served as Trump's personal attorney prior to joining the administration, said, "There's nothing wrong with peaceful protest." But he sought to draw a distinction with protests that turn into violent confrontations, singling out clashes between protesters and agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"What he's talking about and what the administration is talking about is organized efforts by individuals who are not present at the protests, but they're funding these protests," Blanche said. "And they're not protests. They inflicting damage and harm and actually assaulting officers; they’re damaging vehicles. That’s the conduct that we’re trying to stop."
Igniting pushback from both the left and the right, Bondi on Sept. 15 vowed the Justice Department intends to target "those who engage in hate speech," even though the First Amendment has widely been interpreted as protecting hate speech.
"There's free speech and then there's hate speech," Bondi said in an appearance on former White House aide Katie Miller's podcast, "and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society."
Trump to reporter: 'We should probably go after you'
The next day, Bondi walked back those remarks. "Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It's a crime," Bondi said in a statement. "For far too long, we've watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over."
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of three justices who make up the court's liberal bloc, weighed into the debate over free speech on Sept. 16. "Every time I listen to a lawyer-trained representative saying we should criminalize free speech in some way, I think to myself,'That law school failed,'" she said at event on civic education.
Trump, when asked Sept. 16 about Bondi's remarks about "hate speech," lashed out the reporter who asked the question, Jonathan Karl of ABC News.
"We should probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It's hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart," Trump said to Karl. "Maybe they'll come after ABC."