A group of seven officers with the U.S. Capitol Police have filed a new federal lawsuit against former President Donald Trump over his incitement of the January Capitol riot. The lawsuit, which is a civil case, names others as defendants as well, including longtime Trump ally Roger Stone, who helped promote the lies about the integrity of last year’s presidential election that inspired the riot. As described by The New York Times, the new lawsuit is not the first civil case against Trump over the riot, but it is “the first to allege that Mr. Trump worked in concert with both far-right extremists and political organizers promoting his baseless lies that the presidential election was marred by fraud.”
The seven officers involved in the new case had not previously spoken publicly about their experiences at the Capitol on January 6. As described by the Times, one of the plaintiffs — Governor Latson — has now revealed, though, how he “was helping to secure the Senate chamber when a mob of rioters broke in and shoved him, beat him and hurled racial slurs at him.” Overall, scores of officers were injured by the rampaging mob. When several of those officers spoke at a House hearing about their experiences, certain prominent Trump supporters harshly criticized them — no matter the consistent right-wing claims of “backing the blue.” By all appearances, certain officers almost died — but this fact didn’t stop Fox host Laura Ingraham from giving out mock awards for what she called a “performance” at that House hearing.
As has been alleged in other cases, the new lawsuit against Trump and the others — including members of far-right groups including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers — alleges a violation of the law known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, which covers certain instances of political violence. As reported by The Washington Post, that federal law outlawed the usage of “force, intimidation, or threat” to impede the carrying out of rights, including the right to vote. If Trump and his allies had been able to go through with their haphazard plan of getting Biden’s presidential election victory thrown out, then the votes of millions of people who supported Biden would have essentially been nullified. Trump’s antics have placed him at odds with the basic democratic process in the United States.
The new lawsuit goes through some of the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the riot. In short, it lays out how the incitement for the riot didn’t just consist of one set of remarks from Trump — the incitement included months of lies about the integrity of the election, and many of these lies were trumpeted by prominent conservatives. The riot also remains under investigation by a select committee in the House, which issued a slew of urgent requests this week seeking Trump era documents from federal agencies.
