Former President Donald Trump and former New York City Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who used to serve as Trump’s personal attorney, asked a federal judge on Thursday to dismiss a lawsuit against them regarding allegations of inciting violence on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.
CNBC reported the news Thursday morning, saying, “The lawsuit, brought by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and 10 other House Democrats, accuses the defendants of violating the federal Ku Klux Klan Act on Jan. 6 by fomenting a mob of Trump’s supporters to stop Congress from confirming President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.”
Trump and Giuliani argue their actions during a rally held near the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6 were protected by the First Amendment.
The lawsuit was filed by Mississippi Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who serves as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
CNN reported in February the lawsuit was “the first civil action filed against the former President related to the attack at the US Capitol and comes days after the Senate acquitted Trump in his impeachment trial.”
The CNN report also noted the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People backed the lawsuit, which accused Trump and Giulini of conspiring with right-wing groups.
“Defendants Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, through their leadership, acted in concert to spearhead the assault on the Capitol while the angry mob that Defendants Trump and Giuliani incited descended on the Capitol,” the lawsuit said, according to CNN.
“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,” it added.
The requests from Trump and Giulini’s legal teams to dismiss the suit took place the same week the Senate was likely set to vote on whether to approve a 9/11-type commission to investigate the events of the U.S. Capitol riot.
The legislation requires a 60-vote supermajority and is thus not expected to pass in the evenly divided Senate.
Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, who voted to impeach Trump following the events of Jan. 6, has announced he will vote in favor of the commission, according to The Hill.
“Romney’s comments make him the first GOP senator to say he would vote for the bill,” according to the report.
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski became the second GOP senator to announce she will vote in favor of the commission.
“I’m going to support it,” Murkowski told reporters Thursday, according to The Hill.
News: Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she will vote for the Jan. 6 independent commission.
“I’m going to support it.”
(via @frankthorp @JulieNBCNews)
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 25, 2021
The group Oath Keepers also requested on Wednesday that a federal judge dismiss the case against them regarding the day’s events.
If “the right of the people to exercise their right to peaceably assemble for the purpose of petitioning Congress for redress of grievances should be subject to a conspiracy law,” Oath Keepers attorney Kerry Lee Morgan of Michigan argued there would be “nothing left” of the right to petition, according to The Washington Post.
