Appeals Court Says Trump Can’t Use Presidency to Avoid Capitol Police Lawsuits

The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Friday ruled that former President Donald Trump is not immune from lawsuits brought by Capitol police officers regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. 

The order, released on the docket Friday, stated that the former president failed to demonstrate that he was entitled to “absolute  presidential immunity from certain civil damages claims against him.” 

The judges rejected his argument that his alleged actions “constituted speech on matters of public concern” and that his speech was “invariably an official function." 

“The salient question in Blassingame, we explained, was instead whether President Trump’s alleged actions reasonably could be understood as official functions of the presidency, in which case official-act immunity would attach, or, alternatively, whether they reasonably could be understood only as re-election activity, in which case it would not."

The judges added that, after closer review, the claim simply “bears no inherent connection to the essential distinction between official and unofficial acts.” 

Friday’s order comes shortly after three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against Trump in a case brought by Capitol Police Officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby and lawmakers, including Reps. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Bennie Thompson, D-Mich.

The parties sought to pin Trump on civil liability for the destruction wreaked during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. The officers in the suit sought an estimated $75,000 each in damages.

The group first launched its suit in March 2021, claiming the former president’s false claims regarding election fraud resulted in a deadly breach of their workplace, innumerable physical and emotional injuries, suicides among Capitol Police officers, and more.

The court, in Friday’s ruling, concluded that a different lawsuit first brought by Capitol Police Officer Conrad Smith and seven colleagues in August 2021 was essentially “indistinguishable” from Blassingame’s case.