Former U.S. President Donald Trump reacts during an event held to deal with the recent derailment of a train carrying hazardous waste, in East Palestine, Ohio, U.S., February 22, 2023.Â
Alan Freed | Reuters
Former President Donald Trump will be sued by two U.S. Capitol Cops in search of to carry him accountable for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, the Department of Justice determined in a court filing Thursday.
Attorneys for the DOJ’s civil division told a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., that it should reject Trump’s “categorical argument” that the U.S. president “is at all times immune from any civil suits” based on his public remarks, “even when that speech also constitutes incitement to imminent private violence.”
“Chatting with the general public on matters of public concern is a conventional function of the Presidency, and the outer perimeter of the President’s Office includes an unlimited realm of such speech,” the DOJ attorneys wrote. “But that traditional function is one among public communication. It doesn’t include incitement of imminent private violence of the kind the district court found that plaintiffs’ complaints have plausibly alleged here.”
A U.S. District Court judge in February 2022 ruled against Trump’s efforts to dismiss civil lawsuits by the 2 law enforcement officials and members of Congress. The judge wrote that Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, by which he urged a crowd of his supporters to “fight like hell” after which directed them toward the Capitol, may very well be seen as “a call for collective motion.”
Trump appealed. After hearing arguments in December, the appellate judges had asked the DOJ to weigh in on the dispute.
Within the 32-page temporary filed Thursday, the Justice Department attorneys determined the district court was right to reject Trump’s assertion of absolute immunity when he’s speaking “on a matter of public concern.”
But they stressed that the U.S. was not expressing a view on whether Trump’s speech incited the Capitol riot.
They cited legal precedent noting that the president ought to be given “broad latitude” to talk without fear that their off-the-cuff remarks “will give rise to litigation and potential liability.” But denying absolute immunity protection to the “incitement of imminent private violence” mustn’t “unduly chill” the president’s speech, they determined.
Trump was impeached within the House on an article of “incitement of rebellion” after the riot. He was acquitted within the Senate.
