The fact that Donald Trump was in office during the Jan. 6 attack does not protect him from civil lawsuits related to the insurrection, according to a Friday decision from the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.
“When a first-term President opts to seek a second term, his campaign to win re-election is not an official presidential act. The Office of the Presidency as an institution is agnostic about who will occupy it next. And campaigning to gain that office is not an official act of the office,” wrote D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan.
The Washington Post reported that the unanimous ruling from the three-judge panel, which puts a dent in Trump’s “presidential immunity” defense, is expected to be appealed.
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The former president is the subject of three civil cases from Democratic members of Congress and Capitol police officers that call for him to be punished for inciting the Jan. 6 riot by telling followers that the 2020 election was stolen and that they should march to the Capitol and “fight like hell.”
They sued under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871—which bans the use of force or threats to stop government officials from performing their duties and grants parties harmed by the intimidation the option to seek damages— contending that Trump worked with far-right groups to stop Joe Biden’s confirmation.
But Trump’s legal team used the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Nixon v. Fitzgerald to argue that presidents can only be held legally accountable for personal actions that cross “the outer perimeter” of their responsibilities. They claimed that Trump’s public statements and social media posts were “dead-center” within his job as president to ensure election integrity.
Therefore, the ruling hinged on whether Trump stepped over that line. Judges deliberated over whether Trump’s behavior was considered part of a presidential speech or personal actions that created public disturbances.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office asserted, “The defendant acted deceitfully or corruptly to secure a personal benefit to himself as a presidential candidate, not to carry out constitutional obligations entrusted to the presidency.”
In February 2022, a lower-court judge denied Trump’s immunity claim, saying the president had “no role” in the “Certification of the Electoral College vote” and that “claims of election fraud and theft” couldn’t be labeled as his “official duty.” Trump then appealed to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
