US District Judge Amit P. Mehta set at least two hours of oral arguments in Washington to consider whether a federal jury may hear claims that the former president and others instigated and facilitated that day’s attack, violating the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan Act that bars violent interference in Congress’s constitutional duties.
The judge will also weigh whether a jury should consider whether Trump and his co-defendants are legally liable for injuries sustained by lawmakers and police during the deadly, hourslong breach of the Capitol by Trump supporters angered by his unfounded claims of election fraud.
The FBI and Justice Department have arrested more than 700 people in connection with the Jan. 6 attack. In addition, a House committee is investigating whether to recommend legal action against Trump and his aides, and other claims have been made in civil lawsuits.
Trump and his co-defendants have moved to dismiss three civil suits: one brought by Representative Bennie G. Thompson, Democrat from Mississippi, with 10 other lawmakers; another by Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat from California, a former prosecutor and Trump impeachment manager; and a separate suit by US Capitol Police officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby.
Thompson left his case in July after becoming cochair of the House Jan. 6 committee. Another defendant, the Proud Boys, has not responded to the litigation. The Proud Boys has a history of violent street clashes with left-wing groups and includes people accused of leading parts of the Capitol attack.
In court briefs, Trump attorney Jesse Binnall said his client enjoys ‘’absolute immunity’’ from civil suits on separation-of-powers and free speech grounds. He argued that Trump was acting as president and carrying out his constitutional duty to ensure the faithful execution of the nation’s laws by opposing Congress’s vote on Jan. 6 to confirm Biden’s Electoral College victory.
The allegations against Trump ‘’relate to the public speech of the then-sitting President of the United States’’ and stem from the ‘’political and personal animosity’’ of his foes, Binnall argued. ‘’This Court should not be fooled . . . The rule of law requires all people be treated equally . . . There can be no exception to these stalwart constitutional protections merely because [plaintiffs do] not want to extend these protections to [their] political nemesis.’’
Separately, Giuliani’s defense called it ‘’too far-fetched and outlandish’’ to believe the plaintiffs would successfully tie him and Trump to ‘’a vast conspiracy to mastermind the attack on the Capitol.’’
Those assertions were countered by plaintiffs and some First Amendment lawyers, scholars, and liberal groups who filed friend-of-the-court briefs.
‘’The First Amendment does not protect the military-style incursion into the Capitol led by the Oath Keepers; nor does it shield Trump and Giuliani’s incendiary remarks, which aroused and mobilized the assembled crowd with the purpose, and having the effect, of violently disrupting official proceedings of Congress,’’ wrote House lawmakers’ legal team, led by Joseph M. Sellers.
Trump was not acting in his official capacity as president but as a failed political candidate and private citizen when he openly supported and encouraged those who used violence against election officials and his political opponents, Sellers argued, joined by attorneys for the NAACP.
Trump also ignored warnings that violence was a foreseeable result and did nothing to calm the frenzied mob for more than an hour after rioting began in a conspiracy to obstruct by force or threat the certification of the 2020 election results, Sellers also argued in alignment with Swalwell’s three-firm team of Caleb Andonian, KaiserDillon, and Coburn & Greenbaum.
WASHINGTON POST
Ohio’s Jordan refuses Jan. 6 select committee’s request
Representative Jim Jordan is refusing a request to be interviewed by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, calling it an ‘’unprecedented and inappropriate demand.’’
In a letter dated Sunday and addressed to the committee’s chairman, Represetative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, the Ohio Republican and close ally of former president Donald Trump accused the panel, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, of playing politics.
‘’Your attempt to pry into the deliberative process informing a Member about legislative matters before the House is an outrageous abuse of the Select Committee’s authority,’’ Jordan wrote in the letter, which he posted to his Twitter account Sunday.
Jordan declined to comply with the Dec. 22 request to appear before the panel to discuss his communication with Trump on the day of the assault. Jordan previously said that he could not recall how many times he spoke with Trump on Jan. 6 but that they spoke at least once.
The panel is also seeking details of any communications Jordan had that day, or the previous day, with Trump’s legal team, White House staffers, members of the ‘’war room’’ team that assembled at the Willard hotel ahead of the attack, and any other people ‘’involved in organizing or planning the actions and strategies for January 6th.’’
The request also specifies that Jordan may be able to provide details about meetings with Trump and White House officials in the weeks and months leading up to Jan. 6 about ‘’strategies for overturning the results of the 2020 election.’’
A spokesman for the committee said in a statement Monday that Jordan’s letter ‘’fails to address the principal bases for the Select Committee’s request for a meeting, including that he worked directly with President Trump and the Trump legal team to attempt to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election.’’ The statement added: ‘’Mr. Jordan has admitted that he spoke directly to President Trump on January 6th and is thus a material witness.’’
The spokesman said the committee will respond in more detail to Jordan in the coming days. Jordan’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
WASHINGTON POST
Top Harris aide to take post at MSNBC
Symone Sanders, the former chief spokeswoman for Vice President Kamala Harris who advised and defended the groundbreaking politician during a historic but uneven first year, has taken a job with MSNBC, the network said Monday morning.
Beginning in the spring, Sanders, 31, will host an unspecified weekend show on MSNBC and will also appear on the Peacock streaming network’s ‘’The Choice,’’ a 24/7 news channel. Details of both shows have not been released yet. Sanders will remain based in Washington.
Before her departure at the end of last year, Sanders had been one of Harris’s most vocal and public defenders. In addition to concerns about whether Harris had adequately addressed the issues in her portfolio, the vice president’s office was beset by concerns about messaging discipline and staff dysfunction, topped by four high-level departures at the end of the year.
The troubles have continued into 2022. Jamal Simmons, who was hired as communications director for the vice president’s office, spent his first days on the job apologizing for decade-old tweets about ‘’undocumented folks.’’
Sanders, 31, a Black political strategist, was a spokeswoman for the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, but became a senior adviser to Joe Biden in his 2020 bid for the White House, a race that played out amid racial unrest following the police killing of George Floyd. Black voters emerged as key to Biden’s victory. She has previously been a political analyst for CNN and published a 2020 memoir, ‘’No, You Shut Up.’’
WASHINGTON POST
