Trump wants a judge to dismiss three lawsuits seeking to hold him responsible for the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Former president Donald Trump at the rally on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, DC.
US District Judge Amit Mehta asked questions that suggested he was at a minimum skeptical of Trump’s sweeping argument that he was immune against being sued for nearly anything he’d said during his four years as president. But Mehta also said during the hearing that he was struggling with whether the core conspiracy claim could go forward based on the facts laid out in the lawsuits, and whether comments by Trump and some of his other high-profile supporters on Jan.
A ruling from Mehta won't end the legal wrangling over Trump’s civil liability for the insurrection. If Trump fails to convince Mehta to toss these first three cases, he could ask an appeals court and potentially the US Supreme Court to intervene. If Trump succeeds at this stage, the plaintiffs could appeal.
Mehta pushed back, pointing out that the lawsuits alleged that Trump had appeared at the Jan. 6 rally to advance his personal interests as a candidate for office. The judge asked Binnall why that wouldn’t place Trump outside the immunity that’s meant to protect a president against being sued for actions that were part of their official duties. Binnall argued that there was too much overlap between a president’s duties and political motivations to try to draw a clear line.
The judge then asked if there was anything a president could say while they were in office that they could be sued for. Binnall said he’d tried to think of examples and could not. Sellers said that the law didn’t require them to show direct communication among all of the defendants, and he pointed out that they had presented facts that alleged coordination between two right-wing groups named in one of the cases, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. Mehta acknowledged that was true, but noted that the plaintiffs would likely be disappointed if he allowed the conspiracy claims against those groups to go forward but dismissed them against Trump.
Malaysia Latest News, Malaysia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Trump Ally Rep. Jim Jordan Declines to Cooperate With Jan. 6 PanelRepublican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of former President Donald Trump’s closest allies in Congress, has rejected a request for an interview by the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection
Read more »
Raskin: Ex-Trump press secretary gave 'a lot of names' in Jan. 6 conversationRep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the Jan. 6 select committee, revealed that former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham named 'a lot of names' during their phone call about the events of the Capitol insurrection.
Read more »
Is Donald Trump an Anti-Semite?“Having negative stereotypes of other groups is, like it or not, a rather normal vice,” the philosopher Avishai Margalit said. “But when the stereotypes become an obsession, and they are repeated again and again by someone, this is something else.”
Read more »
Man Arrested For Allegedly Telling Secret Service He Wanted to Kill Donald Trump“I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I will stand up to fascism.' Thomas Welnicki, 72, has has been accused of calling the Secret Service multiple times to threaten Donald Trump's life.
Read more »
New York City man charged with threatening to kill Donald TrumpA 72-year-old New York man was arrested on a charge of threatening to kill former President Trump. But it doesn’t appear there was ever any danger — the man is accused of making his threats directly to the Secret Service.
Read more »