Excerpts from NBC News. Read the full article here.
“Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer for Carey, called Friday’s filing by the Justice Department “long overdue.”
““This is a very significant victory for not only the First Amendment rights of Mr. Carey but the rights of all Americans to stand up and speak out on issues that they care about without being targeted for punishment by the Justice Department,” Verheyden-Hilliard told NBC News in a phone call.”
““This was a direct protest about an illegal order that President Trump tried to put in place. I did not do this just for myself, but for everyone who believes in the Constitution and the protections for all that it provides,” Carey said in a statement released by his legal counsel after his arraignment.
“”The timing is surely not accidental, that they are moving to dismiss the charges immediately in advance of their obligation to provide information into their internal decision-making to prosecute Mr. Carey, as well as directives related to an executive order that we believe is not constitutionally sound,” said Verheyden-Hilliard, a co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, a Washington-based civil rights law firm.”