NAACP, House Democrat Sues Trump and Giuliani After Jan. 6 Capitol Breach

Then-President Donald Trump greets the crowd at the "Stop The Steal" rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

A top House Democrat and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sued former President Donald Trump and attorney Rudy Giuliani over their respective speeches to supporters on Jan. 6.

“While the majority of Republicans in the Senate abdicated their responsibility to hold the president accountable, we must hold him accountable for the insurrection that he so blatantly planned,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a statement. “Failure to do so will only invite this type of authoritarianism for the anti-democratic forces on the far right that are so intent on destroying our country.”

The lawsuit (pdf) was filed in the U.S. District Court for Washington D.C. The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were also named as defendants in the suit.

The lawsuit alleges that Trump and Giuliani, a former prosecutor and New York City mayor, worked with the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys to target Congress.

“The insurrection at the Capitol was a direct, intended, and foreseeable result of the Defendants’ unlawful conspiracy,” the lawsuit says. “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.”

Attorney Rudy Giuliani at the Stop the Steal rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Jenny Jing/The Epoch Times

Trump was acquitted during an impeachment trial over the weekend for allegedly inciting violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The president, for his part, told supporters to protest “peacefully and patriotically” and later told them to go home. Meanwhile, no criminal charges were filed against either Trump or Giuliani.

Trump’s lawyers, during the impeachment trial, argued that House Democrats presented a flawed case.

“Burden of proof was on them, and they didn’t meet their burden of proof,” said attorney Bruce Castor, referring to the House impeachment managers.

Trump in a statement after the vote said it was part of the “greatest witch hunt in the history of our country.”

“No president has ever gone through anything like it, and it continues because our opponents cannot forget the almost 75 million people, the highest number ever for a sitting president, who voted for us just a few short months ago,” he said, adding that his Make America Great Again movement “has only just begun.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Giuliani’s team and Trump’s team for comment about the lawsuit.