Democratic Congressman, NAACP Sue Donald Trump over Capitol Riot
After Former President Donald Trump was acquitted during his impeachment trial last weekend, a Congressmember and the NAACP filed a lawsuit against him, insisting that he incited the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building.
On Tuesday, Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi – who is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee – filed the lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C. against Trump, The Christian Post reports. Representing Thompson is the NAACP and the civil rights law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll.
Democratic Reps. Hank Johnson of Georgia and Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey are expected to join the legal fight as plaintiffs in the coming days.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argue that “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.”
Thompson’s complaint also lists Former New York City Mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Guiliani and far-right groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers as defendants who played a role in the attack.
In a statement shared by the NAACP, Thompson accused Trump of partaking in a coup attempt. The lawsuit also accused Trump, Guiliani, and the Proud Boys for directly violating the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act — a Reconstruction-era law that was designed to protect African Americans from violence carried out by white supremacists.
Trump’s “gleeful support of violent white supremacists led to a breach of the Capitol that put my life, and that of my colleagues, in grave danger,” Thompson contended. “It is by the slimmest of luck that the outcome was not deadlier.”
The lawsuit accuses Trump of inciting violence in after he told his supporters to “fight like hell” at a Save America Rally near the White House prior to the Capitol riot. Guiliani was accused in the lawsuit of calling on lawmakers to “slow down” the electoral count on Jan. 6.
Believing that the former President should be held accountable for the attack, Thompson explained that his legal action is a direct result of Trump’s acquittal by the U.S. Senate.
“While the majority of Republicans in the Senate abdicated their responsibility to hold the President accountable, we must hold him accountable for the insurrection that he so blatantly planned,” Thompson asserted.
“Failure to do so will only invite this type of authoritarianism for the anti-democratic forces on the far right that are so intent on destroying our country,” he concluded.
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/John McDonnell/Pool
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer. He is also the co-hosts of the For Your Soul podcast, which seeks to equip the church with biblical truth and sound doctrine Visit his blog Blessed Are The Forgiven.
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