Haitian Group Wants Criminal Charges Filed Against Trump, Vance Over Racist Lies on Social Media

Donald Trump and JD Vance have spent weeks spreading lies that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. Those idiotic lies have had real consequences for the community, with racist vandalism and bomb threats against schools, hospitals, and government buildings. And now the Haitian-American community would like Trump and Vance to face some consequences of their own with criminal charges.

Haitian Bridge Alliance, a nonprofit that provides immigrants with legal and social services, has filed paperwork with Clark County Municipal Court in Ohio, laying out the various laws that Trump and Vance have broken. Ohio law allows private citizens to ask for criminal charges to be filed, and that’s precisely what’s happening here.

A judge can either accept or reject the affidavit filed by Haitian Bridge Alliance today. If the judge believes they have a case, arrest warrants can be issued for both Trump and Vance, though that seems incredibly unlikely given the fact that American politicians like Trump are almost always above the law.

Cleveland-based Chandra Law Firm helped file the affidavit and the lead counsel on the case, Subodh Chandra, is more hopeful that something can be done to hold these men accountable.

“There’s nothing special about Trump and Vance that entitles them to get away with what they’ve done and are doing,” Chandra said in a press release. “They think they’re above the law. They’re not.”

The law firm’s website explains the allegations against Trump and Vance as well as the reasons they believe the two men should be arrested and charged:

• Disrupting public service in violation of R.C. 2909.04(A) and (B) by causing widespread bomb and other threats that resulted in massive disruptions to the public services in Springfield, Ohio;
• Making false alarms in violation of R.C. 2917.32(A) by knowingly causing alarm in the Springfield community by continuing to repeat lies that state and local officials have said were false;
• Committing telecommunications harassment in violation of R.C. 2917.21(A) and S.C.O. § 537.08 by spreading claims they know to be false during the presidential debate, campaign rallies, nationally televised interviews, and social media;
• Committing aggravated menacing in violation R.C. 2903.21(A) by knowingly making intimidating statements with the intent to abuse, threaten, or harass the recipients, including Trump’s threat to deport immigrants who are here legally to Venezuela, a land they have never known;
• Committing aggravated menacing in violation of R.C. 2903.21(A) by knowingly causing others to falsely believe that members of Springfield’s Haitian community would cause serious physical harm to the person or property of others in Springfield; and
• Violating the prohibition against complicity, R.C. 2923.03(A) and S.C.O. § 501.10, by conspiring with one another and spreading vicious lies that caused innocent parties to be parties to their various crimes.

“The Haitian community is suffering in fear because of Trump and Vance’s relentless, irresponsible, false alarms, and public services have been disrupted,” Chandra said. “Trump and Vance must be held accountable to the rule of law. Anyone else who wreaked havoc the way they did would have been arrested by now.”

Trump and Vance have not backed down from their absurd claims about immigrants, which originated with far-right influencers on social media. Instead, the two Republican nominees have doubled down. Trump has repeatedly said that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, who are there legally, should be deported to a place like Venezuela. Vance also continues with the claims, even admitting it all could be made up.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do, Dana,” Vance said, talking with CNN host Dana Bash on Sept. 15.

Vance insisted that “create stories” didn’t mean he was them up out of thin air, but whatever he actually meant, the line itself was almost accidentally revealing. Vance and Trump don’t care about the truth or people who are actually suffering, they only care about riling up their base of extremist idiots—the same idiots who call in bomb threats to hospitals to terrorize a small community in Ohio.

Because that’s what this is. It’s terrorism, plain and simple. And it wouldn’t be happening without Donald Trump and JD Vance. In the words of our former president, lock ’em up.