The Constitution of the United States provides all Americans the right to free speech. We all have the right to express ourselves and have opinions on the news of the day. These rights apply equally to the President of the United States.
Unfortunately, Attorney General William Barr said this week in an interview with ABC News that the President’s tweets about the Justice Department “make it impossible for me to do my job.”
Really?
The Attorney General certainly has a difficult job. Since before he was elected, many rogue government officials have been on a constant mission to bring down President Trump. Spying on the campaign, the Russia collusion hoax, FISA abuses, and the impeachment debacle can all be traced back to government officials misusing their positions of power.
There are real crimes that the Attorney General and Department of Justice should be (and hopefully are) investigating. The media and the political left are failing to hold the real villains to account in these situations.
So, who will?
The president fills this void, keeping these stories alive by communicating via tweets. This seems to be the only way that the American people will ever get the real facts.
President Trump has every right to express his opinion on these matters, as he has been targeted and attacked relentlessly since even before he was elected. Corrupt officials have destroyed the lives of many innocent people along the way, too. Many would even argue that the president has an obligation to call out the unfair treatment and politically-motivated attacks on his allies.
Complaints about President Trump’s behavior on Twitter were abound since even before he was elected. Political foes have called his tweets racist, abusive, bullying, and other pejoratives. And while they have every right to do so, it does not make them correct.
So why do they do this?
The critics of the President hate the fact that he can communicate directly to the American people.
Twitter is helping to even the communications landscape.
“It is just a different method of communicating with the American people and the president has every right to weigh in,” National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said. “He’s got First Amendment rights, even though he’s president. And he’s got a right to weigh in with his opinions on the big issues of the day and I think he’s going to continue to do that.”
O’Brien is exactly right. Democrat opponents and other losers want to suppress free speech so they can prevent improvements to the current system.
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham indicated that Trump will continue his tweeting style.
Trump “has the right, just like any American citizen, to publicly offer his opinions,” she said. “President Trump uses social media very effectively to fight for the American people against injustices in our country, including the fake news.”
Grisham has it right, too. One of the greatest things Trump has done is to bring more free speech back into the U.S. debate.
We all have the same rights (equal rights) to advocate a message and work to influence opinions in the marketplace of ideas. If the Attorney General is unable to do his job based on the President of the United States stating his opinion on Twitter, then he should resign.
Shaun McCutcheon, a free speech advocate, is an Alabama-based electrical engineer and successful plaintiff in the 2014 Supreme Court case McCutcheon v. FEC.
