Trump pushes court to give him absolute immunity from Jan. 6 lawsuits
In a court filing in Washington, D.C., attorneys for former President Donald Trump are asking a judge to grant him total immunity against any civil lawsuits filed in conjunction with the Jan 6th insurrection.
According to the Washington Examiner, the brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the former president is hoping to get the court to overturn a ruling made in February by Judge Amit Mehta when Trump asked for all the lawsuits to be dismissed.
Trump's attorneys have previously argued that his speech at the Jan 6th "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the insurrection at the Capitol falls "within the scope of speech protected by presidential absolute immunity."
In their filing, the former president's attorney claimed, "President Trump is shielded by absolute presidential immunity because his statements were on matters of public concern. No amount of hyperbole about the violence of January 6, 2021, provides a basis for this Court to carve out an exception to the constitutional separation of powers."
The Examiner adds, "Trump's legal team argues in Wednesday's filing that impeachment is the only means of punishing a president for abuse and that attempts by Democrats and others to sue Trump after he emerged victorious in his impeachment trial are tantamount to 'harassment.'"
The attorneys maintained, "A Democratic-controlled House of Representatives already brought impeachment charges against President Trump for allegedly inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021. Their effort failed, and President Trump was acquitted. These further lawsuits are an attempt to thwart that acquittal, and it is just this type of harassment that presidential immunity is meant to foreclose."
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