President Donald Trump must still face civil lawsuits seeking to hold him accountable for his role in the lead up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a long-running litigation from Democratic House members and Capitol Police officers.
Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in an opinion found that a range of actions Trump took leading up to the attack did not qualify for the legal immunity presidents have for official acts.
Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech before a crowd of supporters on the Ellipse was not an official act, the judge said. Neither were certain social media posts from the campaign, certain remarks Trump made at other political events and comments Trump made a day after the 2020 contest claiming the election results were a fraud on the American public, the judge ruled.
