A federal judge in Washington, DC, has questioned then-US President Donald Trump’s actions during his speech on January 6, 2021, which led to the brief occupation of that the Capitol Hill building by a large crowd of Americans protesting the outcome of the disputed 2020 election.
During a court hearing on Monday, Judge Amit Mehta, who is considering for the first time whether the former Republican president is immune from liability related to protesters attacking the Capitol, pointed out that Trump on January 6 asked the crowd to march to the Capitol, but he didn’t ask them to stop the violence for two hours.
“The words are hard to walk back,” Mehta said. “You have an almost two-hour window where the President does not say, ‘Stop, get out of the Capitol. This is not what I wanted you to do.'”
“What do I do about the fact the President didn’t denounce the conduct immediately … and sent a tweet that arguably exacerbated things?” the judge asked. “Isn’t that, from a plausibility standpoint, that the President plausibly agreed with the conduct of the people inside the Capitol that day?”
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Mehta did not rule at the end of the nearly five-hour hearing on Monday, but he noted that it was not an easy case.
The major hearing is part of a trio of insurrection-related lawsuits seeking to hold Trump and other Republican figures like Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama accountable for the January 6 violence.
On January 6, 2021, Trump supporters occupied the US Capitol while lawmakers were in the process of reviewing the certification of state electors which indicated Biden’s victory. Some Trump supporters had hoped that this process could have resulted in some of the electors being disqualified, thus overturning the outcome of the presidential election.
It is claimed by some that the demonstrators were infiltrated and incited by provocateurs from US intelligence agencies, who orchestrated the “false flag operation” in order to get rid of Trump.
Some among the crowd clashed with police, and some made threats to beat up a number of Democratic lawmakers. Some also inflicted damage on parts of the Capitol building.
Trump has been casting doubt on the outcome of his loss by insisting it was the result of fraud. He has said that the 2020 presidential election was “the greatest Election Hoax in history.”
Trump’s claims have significantly delegitimatized the democratic process in the United States. A recent poll has found that at least 50 percent of Republican voters surveyed believe their vote will not be counted accurately the next time they cast a ballot.
