In regards to Trump losing support, you’d think by now they would have figured out each strike at President Trump only serves to increase his poll numbers and widen his appeal.
PO Byron Evans Sued Repubs Under KKK Act for Racist Attacks on Jan. 6 –
Now Admits He Was Watching it on TV that Day...... (Video on FR thread)
pic—The suit contends that Former President Donald J. Trump and his co-defendants violated the Ku Klux Klan Act.Credit...Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
nytimes.com, By Alan Feuer, Aug. 26, 2021, Updated Oct. 18, 2021
A group of seven Capitol Police officers filed a lawsuit on Thursday accusing former President Donald J. Trump and nearly 20 members of far-right extremist groups and political organizations of a plot to disrupt the peaceful transition of power during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.
The suit, which implicated members of the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers militia and Trump associates like Roger J. Stone Jr., was arguably the most expansive civil effort to date seeking to hold Mr. Trump and his allies legally accountable for the storming of the Capitol.
While three other similar lawsuits were filed in recent months, the suit on Thursday was the first to allege that Mr. Trump worked in concert with both far-right extremists and political organizers promoting his baseless lies that the presidential election was marred by fraud.
“This is probably the most comprehensive account of Jan. 6 in terms of civil cases,” said Edward Caspar, a lawyer who is leading the suit for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “It spans from the former president to militants around him to his campaign supporters.”
Several police officers who served during the Capitol riot have come forward with stories of the insults and injuries they faced that day, most prominently at a congressional hearing in July. But the lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in the District of Columbia, was the first time that the seven plaintiffs, five of whom are Black, offered details of their ordeals.
One of the officers, Governor Latson, was helping to secure the Senate chamber when a mob of rioters broke in and shoved him, beat him and hurled racial slurs at him, the lawsuit says. Another, Jason DeRoche, was caught in a melee on the west front steps of the Capitol, where, according to the suit, rioters pelted him with batteries and doused him with mace and bear spray, causing his eyes to swell shut.
Takeaways From Trump’s Indictment in the 2020 Election Inquiry
Four charges for the former president. Former President Donald Trump was charged with four counts in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The indictment was filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington. Here are some key takeaways:
The indictment portrayed an attack on American democracy. Smith framed his case against Trump as one that cuts to a key function of democracy: the peaceful transfer of power. By underscoring this theme, Smith cast his effort as an effort not just to hold Trump accountable but also to defend the very core of democracy.
Trump was placed at the center of the conspiracy charges. Smith put Trump at the heart of three conspiracies that culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to obstruct Congress’s role in ratifying the Electoral College outcome. The special counsel argued that Trump knew that his claims about a stolen election were false, a point that, if proved, could be important to convincing a jury to convict him.
Trump didn’t do it alone. The indictment lists six co-conspirators without naming or indicting them. Based on the descriptions provided, they match the profiles of Trump lawyers and advisers who were willing to argue increasingly outlandish conspiracy and legal theories to keep him in power. It’s unclear whether these co-conspirators will be indicted.
Trump’s political power remains strong. Trump may be on trial in 2024 in three or four separate criminal cases, but so far the indictments appear not to have affected his standing with Republican voters. By a large margin, he remains his party’s front-runner in the presidential primaries.
The suit contends that Mr. Trump and his co-defendants violated the Ku Klux Klan Act, an 1871 statute that includes protections against violent conspiracies that interfere with Congress’s constitutional duties. It also accuses the defendants of committing “bias-motivated acts of terrorism” in violation of District of Columbia law.
The use of civil litigation to hold Mr. Trump — and many in his orbit — accountable for the events of Jan. 6 has taken place even as the Justice Department has undertaken the largest criminal investigation in its history into the Capitol attack and a select committee of Congress has opened its own inquiry into the riot. On Wednesday, members of the committee made far-reaching requests to federal agencies for detailed records of Mr. Trump’s movements and meetings on the day of the attack.
The first of the lawsuits was filed in February by the N.A.A.C.P. on behalf of Democratic lawmakers who accused Mr. Trump, his former lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers of conspiring to prevent certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6.