Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Capitol Storm Conspiracy?
Trump sued using "Ku Klux Klan law"
The Senate may have acquitted Donald Trump, who lost the election, but the debate about his responsibility for the storming of the Capitol is not over yet. A Democratic MP is now indicting the ex-president – with reference to a law to persecute racist groups.
A US Democrat MP has sued ex-President Donald Trump for storming the Capitol under a law known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. The MP Bennie Thompson filed a lawsuit against Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the right-wing extremist groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
Thompson accuses her of conspiring to storm the Capitol on January 6th. The aim on that day was to prevent the final confirmation of the victory of Democrat Joe Biden in the presidential election on November 3rd.
The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee cites the so-called Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 in his lawsuit. The law was passed to allow presidents to take action against racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the fought against equality for blacks after the US Civil War. An article of the law prohibits conspiracies designed to prevent office holders from performing their official duties.
Thompson takes up McConnell's clue
Thompson argues that storming the Capitol should have prevented him and the other MPs from certifying the outcome of the presidential election. The MP is demanding unspecified damages, which are also intended as punitive measures against Trump, Giuliani, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
Impeachment proceedings against Trump had already been initiated because of the attack on Congress that left five dead. In the impeachment process against the ex-president in the Senate on Saturday, however, the two-thirds majority necessary for a guilty verdict was missed.
The leader of the Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, voted like the vast majority of his party friends for an acquittal. He then made Trump responsible for the attack again – and explicitly referred to the possibility of criminal and civil proceedings against the former president.
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