It’s about a conspiracy to unlawfully overturn an election. David Dayen notes the obvious (boldface mine):

…they claim that you cannot criminalize free speech, even as special counsel Jack Smith took pains to say in the complaint that Trump could contest the election in court and even lie about it if he wanted to. It was acting on the lies to definitively work to change the outcome that was actionable. It’s not free speech to engineer the creation of fake electors to be used to confuse the vote count and subvert the popular will, or to tell the Justice Department to “just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

And it was in service to this:

This was their plan: stop the count, allow Trump to remain President and then when everyone freaks out[*] declare martial law and kill a bunch of people in order to overawe the civilian population and force people to accept it. That’s really the plan. This is a dark, evil, degenerate mindset, all for the purpose of retaining power against Constitution and law.

Republicans are going to try to confuse the issue. Don’t fall for it, and kudos to Smith for recognizing this line of attack (and upholding the First Amendment).

*This is why it was very smart–and made it much harder for the Trump insurrection leadership–for the left to stay home and not confront the Trump supporters. Any ‘clashes’ would have been used as a pretext for a state of emergency.