WASHINGTON, D. C. -- Lawyers for former President Donald Trump and his allies on Monday asked a federal judge to dismiss lawsuits filed by plaintiffs, including U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, seeking damages from last year’s Capitol Hill riot that temporarily kept Congress from recording 2020 electoral votes that awarded the presidency to Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump’s lawyer, Jesse Binnall, said Trump urged participants at a Jan. 6, 2021 rally that happened before the riot to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard and did not incite anyone to violence. He said Trump’s expression of dissatisfaction with how the election was conducted was done as part of his presidential job of making sure laws are faithfully executed. Trump should be immune from lawsuits because he was acting in his official capacity, just as judges and prosecutors are immune from civil lawsuits filed over their official conduct, Binnall said.
“Congressional Democrats are hoping this court will help them to score points against a political rival at the expense of the Constitution,” Binnall told United States District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit P. Mehta,
The case names Trump, attorney Rudy Giuliani and the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers as defendants and accuses them of violating the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, a law designed to crack down on violence and intimidation against freed slaves.
The attorney representing Kaptur and a group of Congress members insisted the former president could face legal action because he was acting as a political candidate, not as president when he urged his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol and waited several hours before urging them to stop their rampage.
“Those are actions that have to fall outside the scope of the presidency,” said attorney Joseph Sellers.
The lawsuit that the NAACP filed on behalf of Kaptur and nine of her Democratic colleagues says they suffered emotional harm during the attack were “hindered and impeded” from discharging their official duties and were deprived of “the right to be free from intimidation and threats” while they were doing their jobs. It seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages “to punish the defendants for engaging in a concerted and continuing course of unlawful conduct and to deter the defendants and others from engaging in similar unlawful conduct in the future.”
Mehta grilled attorneys for parties in the case on issues including First Amendment free speech protections, whether there was a “conspiracy” to trigger the riot, and legal precedents surrounding presidential immunity from lawsuits.
“This hearing has demonstrated that this is not an easy case,” said Mehta.
At a press conference after the hearing, Kaptur described Mehta as “astoundingly able” and said he had “studied every nuance involved in the case.”
“I was very inspired by what I saw,” said Kaptur, a Toledo Democrat. “This is a very profound case. There were issues like, when fraud occurs, are you allowed to play by different rules? ... Today was a great day for America. And I hope it’ll be a great day for liberty going forward.”
California Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, who replaced Mississippi’s Bennie Thompson as lead plaintiff in the case after Thompson became chair of a committee probing the riot, said the lawsuit was filed “to hold those responsible for January 6th accountable for their actions.”
“Let’s be clear about what happened a year ago,” said Lee. “This was a disgrace. A former president who lost the popular vote by a large margin sent his supporters to the Capitol to try to reverse a free and fair election, stop the peaceful transfer of power and end the American experiment... We cannot let this shameful moment in our history pass because of the deep harm it caused and because next time the consequences will be even greater.”
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