Former President Donald Trump and one of his attorneys have invoked a First Amendment defense in response to the federal indictment charging Trump with trying to “subvert the legitimate election results.” But legal experts note Trump’s speech isn’t constitutionally protected if he engaged in a criminal conspiracy, as the indictment alleges.

We’ve said it before — politicians can legally make false claims, or even lie to the American public. There’s no law against it. But the “First Amendment does not protect speech in furtherance of a crime. The Supreme Court has made that clear over and over,” Leslie Kendrick, a law professor and director of the Center for the First Amendment at the University of Virginia, told us in an email. “More importantly, every criminal docket in America demonstrates it every day. Soliciting a crime, planning a crime, and committing fraud are all activities that are made of words that subject people to criminal penalties all the time.”

The Department of Justice filed a grand jury indictment against Trump on Aug. 1 concerning his attempts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election, as we’ve explained. The four counts in the indictment are: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

The indictment charges that after the election, Trump used “the pretext of baseless fraud claims” to pressure officials in...

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