Congressman files lawsuit against Trump for inciting Capitol riots

February 18th, 2021

Awake Goy

Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi
and the NAACP filed a civil complaint on Tuesday against former President
Donald Trump, his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, the Proud Boys, and Oath
Keepers for allegedly conspiring to incite the Capitol riots on January 6. Although
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted against convicting Trump last
weekend, McConnell blamed the former president for the violence and suggested
that civil litigation or criminal charges could still be brought against Trump.

Filed in the federal District Court
of Washington, D.C., the lawsuit
accuses Trump, Giuliani, and the far-right extremist groups
of conspiring to incite an assembled crowd to march upon the U.S. Capitol to
disrupt and intimidate Congress from approving the count of electoral votes.
The civil complaint specifically accused the defendants of violating a
Reconstruction Era law commonly referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act, which was
intended to “protect against conspiracies, through violence and intimidation,
that sought to prevent Members of Congress from discharging their official
duties.”

“As part of this unified plan to
prevent the counting of Electoral College votes, Defendants Proud Boys and Oath
Keepers, through their leadership, acted in concert to spearhead the assault on
the Capitol while the angry mob that Defendants Trump and Giuliani incited
descended on the Capitol,” the lawsuit alleges. “The carefully orchestrated
series of events that unfolded at the Save America rally and the storming of
the Capitol was no accident or coincidence. It was the intended and foreseeable
culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the legal
process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the Electoral College.”

“I am privileged to partner with
the NAACP to have my day in court so that the perpetrators of putting members
of Congress at risk can be held accountable,” Rep. Thompson told reporters
on Tuesday.

“You cannot move forward if you
don’t address the illegality of what took place, the treasonous act,” NAACP
President Derrick Johnson told The
Hill. “If you try to move forward without holding people accountable, you
only set yourself up [for] future activity that could possibly be successful in
toppling our democracy. For African Americans, we see a long history of people
not being held accountable…and if we don’t hold people accountable, there
becomes this entitlement that it’s OK to cause harm and violate the law.”

“President Trump has been acquitted
in the Democrats’ latest Impeachment Witch Hunt, and the facts are irrefutable.
President Trump did not plan, produce or organize the Jan. 6th rally on the
Ellipse,” Jason Miller, a spokesman for Trump, said in a recent statement.
“President Trump did not incite or conspire to incite any violence at the
Capitol on Jan. 6th. Speaker Nancy Pelosi
and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser
must answer questions as to why they rejected additional security and National
Guard assistance in the run-up to Jan. 6th.”

“We have a criminal justice system
in this country. We have civil litigation,” Senate Minority Leader McConnell
said after voting to acquit Trump on Saturday. “And former presidents are not
immune from being accountable by either one.”