Capitol Police officers sue Trump over Jan. 6 assault

Seven U.S. Capitol Police officers on Thursday sued former President Donald Trump and more than a dozen alleged participants in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, saying the defendants are responsible for the officers being “violently assaulted, spat on, tear-gassed, bear-sprayed, subjected to racial slurs and epithets, and put in fear for their lives.”

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, alleges that Trump, by falsely claiming the presidential election was rigged, incited a mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from confirming President Joe Biden’s victory.

The complaint describes an array of abuse endured by the seven officers, who collectively “have dedicated more than 150 years” to protecting Congress “so that it can carry out its constitutional responsibilities safely and openly.”

While hundreds of demonstrators besieged the historic building, many of them armed with bludgeons, cans of noxious spray and other weapons, the lawsuit says, Trump “reportedly was watching live television coverage” and “refused to call off the attackers, whom he had personally directed to the Capitol just moments before.”

The complaint says Trump and other defendants, including the former president’s longtime friend, Roger Stone, “encouraged and supported acts of violence, knowing full well that among his supporters were such groups and individuals as the Proud Boys, who had demonstrated their propensity to use violence” against Trump critics.

Representatives for Trump didn’t respond to a request for comment, but his lawyers in similar lawsuits have argued he has immunity from lawsuits over official actions taken while he was in office, and that his comments are shielded by the First Amendment.

A spokesman for Trump also has said the president didn’t plan or organize the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse that preceded the riot or incite or conspire to incite violence at the Capitol.