President Donald Trump addressed his supporters at the Save America Rally near the White House on January 6, 2021. The photo shows him speaking to the crowd on the Ellipse, captured by Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Sipa USA (Sipa via AP Images).
Donald Trump is asking a federal court to dismiss several lawsuits brought against him by members of Congress. These lawsuits accuse him of encouraging the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Trump’s defense argues that holding him responsible for the riot would violate his First Amendment rights. His legal team likened his speech at the Ellipse to the provocative lyrics of a certain rapper.
The lawsuits in question were filed following a complaint by Rep. Bennie Thompson from Mississippi, a former chair of the House Select Committee that investigated the January 6 Capitol attack. The plaintiffs include Rep. Barbara Lee from California, Rep. Eric Swalwell also from California, as well as police officers like Conrad Smith, Bobby Tabron, Briana Kirkland, and others.
The parties collectively contend that Trump, acting in his personal capacity, violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, a law barring mob violence directed at federal officials, and they have made allegations of physical and emotional injury because of his conduct leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021.
In a 35-page motion filed Friday in the federal district court in Washington, D.C., Trump asked the court to reverse a previous ruling which held that the plaintiffs in the case had plausibly alleged that Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech had “incited the crowd to violence.”
The filing posits a hypothetical rapper who is “ranked as one of the most controversial lyricists of all time” and is “particularly popular among angsty teenagers.” It specifically refers to Chief Justice John Roberts reciting rapper Eminem’s lyrics about drowning his wife in the song “97 Bonnie and Clyde” during oral arguments in an unrelated case in 2014.
