Democratic Congressman Sues Donald Trump Over Role In US Capitol Riot

Democratic Congressman Sues Donald Trump Over Role In US Capitol Riot.

DEMOCRATIC congressman Bennie Thompson has accused Donald Trump in a federal lawsuit of inciting the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol and of conspiring with his lawyer and extremist groups to try to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the presidential election.

The lawsuit from the Mississippi’s Representative and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee is part of an expected wave of litigation over the Jan. 6 riot and is believed to be the first filed by a member of Congress. It seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages.

The case also names as defendants the Republican former president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and groups including the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, extremist organisations that had members charged by the Justice Department with taking part in the siege.

A Trump adviser, Jason Miller, said in a statement that Mr Trump did not organise the rally that preceded the riot and “did not incite or conspire to incite any violence at the Capitol on Jan 6th”.

The suit, filed in federal court in Washington under a Reconstruction-era law known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, comes three days after Mr Trump was acquitted in a Senate impeachment trial that centred on allegations that he incited the riot, in which five people died. That acquittal is likely to open the door to fresh legal scrutiny over Mr Trump’s actions before and during the siege.

Additional suits could be brought by other members of Congress or by law enforcement officers injured while responding to the riot.

Even some Republicans who voted to acquit Mr Trump on Saturday acknowledged that the more proper venue to deal with Mr Trump was in the courts, especially now that he has left the White House and lost certain legal protections that shielded him as president.

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