A federal judge dashed former President Donald Trump’s hopes of quashing three lawsuits against him from Capitol Police officers over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
In an order dated Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta cited a prior ruling he issued on the string of lawsuits earlier in the year in which he determined Trump did not have absolute immunity from the civil lawsuits against him. The three lawsuits were filed on behalf of four officers seeking damages for physical and emotional suffering they endured from the riot.
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“The court already rejected President Trump’s assertion of immunity,” Mehta wrote. “The court does so again, The court does not needlessly repeat its reasoning here, but simply adopts and incorporates it by reference.”
Mehta, an appointee of President Barack Obama who serves at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, previously determined that the “alleged facts of this case are without precedent.” He also concluded that Trump’s conduct in question did “not relate to his duties of faithfully executing the laws,” and therefore, presidential immunity did not shield him from civil liability in those three lawsuits.
The judge noted that Trump’s recent motion to dismiss the three lawsuits against him bore a strikingly similar resemblance to the motion he had reviewed last February. At the time, Mehta had pared back some of the suits against the former president but allowed the three cases involving police officers to proceed.
“In nearly identically worded motions, President Trump has moved to dismiss all three actions on one ground: he is absolutely immune from suit because the acts complained of fall within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his presidential responsibilities,” Mehta continued.
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Mehta’s ruling comes about a week after lawyers for Trump appealed his ruling in February. They filed in a federal appeals court and argued he was participating in a national dialogue about the election in his capacity as president.
