(Washington) A federal judge on Friday dismissed Donald Trump’s efforts to dismiss conspiracy charges brought by lawmakers and two Capitol police officers, saying in his ruling that the former president’s words “plausibly” led to the uprising of January 6, 2021.
Posted at 6:13 p.m.
District Court Judge Amit Mehta said in his ruling that Donald Trump’s remarks at a rally before the violent storming of the Capitol were likely “incitement not protected by the First Amendment.”
“Only in the most extraordinary of circumstances could a court fail to recognize that the First Amendment protects a president’s speech,” Mehta wrote. But the court thinks it applies here. »
This decision is just the latest example of the legal burden on the former president. Hours earlier, the National Archives said documents found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort contained classified information and it had notified the Department of Justice.
On Thursday, a New York judge ruled that Donald Trump and two of his children must answer questions under oath as part of New York State’s civil investigation into his business practices. Another judge ordered his company’s chief financial officer to be questioned as part of another investigation by the District of Columbia attorney general’s office. And earlier this week, the company that prepared Donald Trump’s annual financial statements said the documents, used to secure lucrative loans and boost Trump’s image as a wealthy businessman, “should no longer be be invoked”.
At a rally in The Ellipse Park south of the White House hours before Congress certifies the results of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell, and that if you don’t fight like the devils, you won’t have a country”. He said : ” [Nous allons] try to give [républicains faibles] the kind of pride and boldness they need to take back our country,” then told the crowd to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
The judge said Donald Trump’s speech could have incited people to break the law. But he dismissed similar charges against Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and attorney Rudy Giuliani, saying their speech was protected by the First Amendment. The judge has yet to rule on another motion to remove Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, also named in the lawsuits.
The lawsuits, brought by Representative Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, police officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby and initially by Representative Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, allege that Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Messrs. Giuliani and Brooks made “false and inflammatory allegations of fraud and theft, and that in direct response to defendant’s express calls for violence at the rally, a violent mob attacked the United States Capitol.”
Mr Thompson later dropped the suit when he was appointed to lead the select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection.
The lawsuits cite a federal civil rights law that was enacted to counter intimidation of public officials by the Ku Klux Klan. They detail how the Trumps, Giulianis and Brooks spread baseless allegations of voter fraud, both before and after the declaration of the 2020 presidential election, and encouraged the thousands of rioters before they storm the Capitol. Five people died as a result of the January 6 violence, including a Capitol police officer.