Donald Trump’s pardoning of 1,500 people and their accomplices for the storming of the United States Capitol on 6 January, 2021 – with acusations that his own rhetoric contributed to the riot widespread – has put the US ideal of free speech back at the top of the agenda among US observers and legal experts.
In the executive order “Restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship" – one of the 78 Trump signed on the day of his second inauguration on 20 January – he writes that the previous administration had “trampled free speech rights”.
