UPDATED 2/2, 12:35 p.m. ET: Donald Trump was served with a lawsuit related to the Capitol attack, CNN’s Katelyn Polantz reports.
He was sued by Democratic chairman of House Homeland Security Committee Rep. Bennie Thompson.
See original story below.
A federal lawsuit accusing Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Proud Boys, and Oath Keepers of conspiring to incite a violent riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 has been filed by the NAACP and the civil rights law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll.
The suit, backed by Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson and other members of Congress, was filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday.
“Donald Trump needs to be held accountable for deliberately inciting and colluding with white supremacists to stage a coup, in his continuing efforts to disenfranchise African American voters,” Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a press release. “The insurrection was the culmination of a carefully orchestrated, months-long plan to destroy democracy, to block the results of a fair and democratic election, and to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of African American voters who cast valid ballots.”
The suit specifically alleges that both Trump and Giuliani violated what’s often referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act, which was passed in 1871 and is aimed at protecting against conspiracies designed to obstruct constitutional duties. As detailed in the NAACP’s press release on Tuesday, those who participated in the violent (and ultimately fatal) Capitol riot “made clear” their actions were inspired by Trump. Furthermore, per the NAACP, both Trump and Giuliani are alleged to have directly incited the crowd prior to their storming of the Capitol.
Jason Miller also states Giuliani isn’t representing Trump in any legal matters at the moment.
Soon, additional members of Congress—including Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey—are expected to join the suit as plaintiffs.
