Donald Trump should be immune from civil lawsuits over last year’s siege on the United States Capitol by his supporters, a lawyer for the former president told a federal appeals court on Wednesday.
Jesse Binnall told the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that his client Trump is immune from the lawsuits because he was acting as president when he delivered his impassioned remarks to supporters, using the “bully pulpit” to comment on outside events.
Democrats in Congress and police officers filed several lawsuits over the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, alleging that Trump conspired with others to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election results.
Trump told his crowd of supporters that he would never concede the 2020 race and urged them to “fight like hell” before they marched to the Capitol.
A 1982 US Supreme Court ruling held that presidents cannot be sued over their official acts. But US District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, DC, ruled in February that Trump’s fiery speech ahead of the riots did not fall within the then-president’s scope of duties, allowing the lawsuits to move forward.
Credit: Aljazeera.com
