WASHINGTON – A member of Congress and the NAACP filed a civil rights lawsuit on Tuesday that accused former President Donald Trump, Trump’s longtime lawyer and ally Rudy Giuliani, and two extremist groups of plotting to incite the January 6 uprising on the US Capitol.
Representative Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, is pushing for what is known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, a reconstruction-era law that includes a section that makes it illegal to conspire to prevent public officials from “fulfilling any obligations”. Thompson is claiming that Trump and Giuliani incited the crowd that descended on Capitol Hill to prevent Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote, while the leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers “acted together to lead the attack.”
It is the first civil lawsuit that seeks to hold Trump and his supporters responsible for the violence on Capitol Hill, but it is not the first lawsuit that Trump has faced under the Ku Klux Klan Act. Trump is a defendant in a separate case pending in federal court that accuses him of conspiring with the Republican National Committee to interfere with black voters’ rights after the election. Other cases to invoke the law include an ongoing lawsuit against white supremacist groups involved in organizing the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which resulted in dozens of injuries and the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer. years old.
Thompson’s lawsuit, filed in the federal district court in Washington, DC, comes just two days after the U.S. Senate voted over the weekend to absolve Trump in his impeachment trial on the charge that he incited the insurrection. In announcing the lawsuit, Thompson issued a statement saying that because Senate Republicans “have abdicated their responsibility to hold the president accountable, we must hold him responsible for the insurgency he so brazenly planned”. The suit also cited Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who voted for Trump’s acquittal, but later said Trump was responsible for the insurrection and referred to “civil litigation” as a way to hold him accountable.
While Congress met in a joint session on January 6 to officially certify the results of the election, hundreds of people crossed security perimeters around the Capitol; some US Capitol police officers attacked trying to hold the line through, according to billing documents. The attack came just after Trump spoke at a rally a few blocks away and urged his supporters to go to the Capitol, telling them: “Something is wrong here, something is really wrong, it can’t have happened and we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore. “
Federal prosecutors highlighted how some people accused of the insurrection described themselves as following Trump’s direction. Some defendants that the government tried to keep behind bars also argued with the judges that they should not be considered a danger to the community because they were receiving instructions from the then president and commander in chief.
The Thompson lawsuit described Trump’s refusal to accept the election results in the weeks after November 3 and the efforts of the former president and Giuliani to repeatedly attack the integrity of the electoral process and falsely claim that there was widespread voter fraud. Election officials in states where Trump has focused his attacks, including Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, have found no evidence to support his allegations of fraudulent activity. Dozens of state and federal judges across the country rejected the lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies questioning the election results as being procedurally deficient or without merit.
As evidence of coordination with the Proud Boys, a far-right group that described its members as “Western Chauvinists”, Thompson cited Trump’s response in a presidential debate in late September, when asked whether he would condemn the violence committed by white supremacists and extremist groups. Then-candidate Joe Biden agreed, asking Trump to condemn the Proud Boys as an example and Trump replied, “Proud Boys, step back and stay put.” Shortly after that observation, Enrique Tarrio, a leader and public face of the Proud Boys organization, tweeted: “Standing, sir.” The quote became a kind of motto for the group.
Tarrio was arrested while trying to enter Washington before the January 6 uprising, but of the more than 200 people accused so far, a small number have been identified as members of the Proud Boys. Thompson’s lawsuit cites the involvement of Joseph Biggs, who was accused and identified as a leader of the Proud Boys.
Several people identified by prosecutors as members of the Oath Keepers. a militia organization that focuses on recruiting current and former military personnel and the police, has been criminally accused of conspiring to interfere in Congress’ certification of votes from the Electoral College. Members of this alleged conspiracy are accused of spending the weeks before January 6 actively planning the violence and carrying out an organized attack on the Capitol. Prosecutors recently presented evidence in court documents that one of those defendants, Thomas Caldwell, sent a message about the attempt to arrange for arms to be transported across the Potomac River to Washington.
Thompson was at the House Gallery when the rioters entered the Capitol, and the lawsuit says he could hear people “trying to break into the chamber by referring to President Pelosi as a ‘bitch’, saying they wanted to get their hands on it and direct it to vice president Pence for cheating on President Trump. “The lawsuit notes that the 72-year-old legislator failed to observe social detachment and other measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 while taking refuge in a room with several hundred other people , including two other members of Congress who later tested positive for the disease.
“Throughout this time, Claimant Thompson reasonably feared for his physique
safety. While arrested in the building, during the siege by the protesters that the Defendants unleashed on Capitol Hill, Plaintiff Thompson feared for his life and feared that he would never be able to see his family again, “NAACP lawyers and a private law firm involved in bringing the case , Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, wrote in the complaint.
Thompson is seeking an unspecified amount of money damages from Trump and his co-defendants “to punish the Defendants for engaging in a combined and continuous course of illegal conduct and to prevent Defendants and others from engaging in similar illegal conduct in the future.”
Giuliani, a representative of the Oath Keepers, and a lawyer representing Trump in the civil rights case previously opened on behalf of black voters, did not immediately return requests for comment.