Does Pam Bondi know what free speech is?

Good morning Britain. Donald Trump is flying to the United Kingdom today for his big state visit. Yet his Attorney General Pam Bondi seems to be going one step further. She appears to think that America, like Britain, ought to now be a country where you can go to jail for posting memes on Facebook. 

Kate Miller, hosting Bondi on the ‘Kate Miller Podcast’, said that Kirk’s murder last week was what happened when college campuses don’t take action against or expel students who harass conservative speakers. Using antisemitism as an example of left-wing campus “hate speech”, Bondi claimed in reply: “There’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society.” 

Does the Attorney General know that “hate speech” is protected under the Constitutional? She continued: “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, and that’s across the aisle.”

If this all gives you flashbacks to the days of social justice warrior campus protests (“keep your hate speech off this campus!”) you’re not alone. Bondi didn’t elaborate on exactly what she meant by “targeting anyone with hate speech”. Did she mean people gloating over Kirk’s death, saying he deserved to die for his beliefs? That’s certainly hateful and disgusting, but is it illegal? Not in America.

Bondi’s fudge, whether it was purely idiotic or a more sinister attempt to roll back speech rights, expresses an outlook totally at odds with Kirk’s: he didn’t believe in hate speech. The idea that words can be dangerous is antithetical to his belief in dialogue and open debate.

And while the AG is going in on free speech, why not take on the free press as well? Trump announced that he’s brought a $15bn defamation and libel lawsuit against the New York Times, singling out its endorsement of Kamala Harris as “the single largest illegal Campaign contribution, EVER.” One doesn’t have to like the New York Times – and Cockburn most assuredly does not – to realize that a newspaper can endorse whoever it wants. This is a frivolous suit and one that demeans the office of the presidency. 

It follows an active $10bn lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal for its “bawdy Epstein birthday letter” story – a story that appears, for now at least to have been partially vindicated by subsequent developments, even if Team Trump continues to deny that the President ever drew the now infamous drawing in Epstein’s weird birthday book. 

There’s also a defamation lawsuit against ABC (settled for $15mn) and an election interference lawsuit against CBS/Paramount (settled for $16mn). The Trump administration has understandable grievances against the many legacy media institutions which have for years smeared the Commander-in-Chief and peddled fraudulent narratives against him. But even if the White House thinks it’s constitutional to decide what these news outlets can and can’t publish, it isn’t. Trump voters may like the idea of “retribution” against the Fake News Complex, but almost nobody will have cast their for Donald Trump hoping he would clamp down on hate speech – something Kamala Harris would likely have done. Bondi ought to retract her statement immediately.