Donald Trump sued over Capitol police officer’s death after January 6 riot

Former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during a rally

 in Warren, Michigan, U.S., October 1, 2022. (File photo: Reuters)

Bloomberg
Published: 06 January ,2023

Donald Trump is being blamed for the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was assaulted during the January 6, 2021, riot, in a lawsuit that claims the former president is responsible because he riled up his supporters with false election claims and calls to take action.

That “cost Sicknick his life,” Sandra Garza, Sicknick’s former girlfriend and representative of his estate, said in a complaint filed in Washington Thursday.

It’s the latest civil lawsuit seeking to hold Trump legally responsible for the violence at the Capitol. He’s previously argued that he’s immune against being sued over his words and actions in connection with the events of January 6. A federal appeals court is set to weigh in on the merits of that defense later this year.

Garza also sued Julian Khater and George Tanios, both of whom pleaded guilty last year to offenses tied to the riot. As part of his plea, Khater admitted to spraying Sicknick and other officers with bear spray. Tanios admitted to buying the bear spray and bringing it to the Capitol. Khater then took the canister from Khater’s backpack and used it on the officers, according to the complaint.

Sicknick later collapsed at police headquarters and died the next day. A medical examiner determined that he died of natural causes, though Garza’s complaint notes the examiner also previously stated that “all that transpired played a role in his condition.” The government didn’t charge the men in connection with Sicknick’s death.

Garza’s lawyers placed the blame squarely on the former president.

“Trump put out a clear call to action, and the crowd — including defendants Khater and Tanios — responded,” Garza’s lawyers said.

Garza is seeking at least $10 million in monetary damages from each defendant as well as punitive damages.

Two years on, Trump in ‘serious legal jeopardy’ over his role in Jan. 6 attack: Legal expert

Former US president already at ‘great risk’ due to numerous other investigations, says Georgetown University Law School professor

6/01/2023 Friday
AA

Friday marks two years since supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol in Washington, DC after he urged them to descend on the seat of Congress to block lawmakers from making official the election of Trump’s successor, Joe Biden.

The ensuing mayhem and violence was historic. Barricades were overrun as rioters clashed violently with police, smashing the Capitol’s windows and invading Congress as lawmakers evacuated and went into lockdown.

Five people died as a result of the violence on Jan. 6, 2021, while in the aftermath four law enforcement officers died by suicide. The Capitol building, seen by many as a symbol of American democracy, suffered damage not seen since over 200 years ago, during the War of 1812, as invading British forces burned it to the ground.

In the two years since, Trump has not put forward any evidence to substantiate his claims of widespread voter fraud – allegations he used to try to stoke public anger and draw enraged rioters to the nation’s capital. Meanwhile, attempts to hold those responsible for the violence have continued within the American legal system.

More than 950 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the deadly riot, including more than 284 charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, according to the Justice Department.

A bipartisan House of Representatives committee that probed the Jan. 6 attack also just released its final report on Dec. 23, just weeks before the panel dissolved with the convening of the 118th Congress.

After an 18-month investigation with 10 public hearings and more than 1,000 interviews, the committee recommended the Justice Department pursue criminal charges against Trump.

Lawmakers recommended prosecutors pursue four charges against the former president: inciting, assisting, or aiding insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the US, and conspiracy to make a false statement.

But what is the next step in the investigation into the Jan. 6 riot? What awaits Trump after announcing he is mounting a bid to retake the White House in 2024?

According to David Super, a professor of law and economics at Washington’s Georgetown University, Trump faces “serious legal jeopardy.”

Trump is already at “great risk” due to numerous other investigations, including those into attempts to meddle in Georgia's 2020 election results, and his company being found guilty of tax fraud in New York, Super said, stressing that “either of those investigations could ensnare him, largely independent of the January 6 Committee's report.”

But the committee found that the former president was much more intimately involved than had previously been understood in efforts to overturn the election illegally, Super told Anadolu Agency.

“Every indication is that the Justice Department already has far more evidence than the committee did, but the Justice Department generally is not allowed to release that evidence publicly in advance of an indictment,” he added – unlike the committee, which released thousands of pages of interview transcripts and other evidence before it wrapped up its work.

- What does committee report mean in American legal system?

One of the effects of the committee making its findings public is that it will cause “much less shock and resistance” among the general public if Trump is charged by the Justice Department, Super argued.

“Before the committee's hearings and report, the Justice Department might have worried that charging the former president would be too shocking to the country and should be avoided regardless of the evidence,” he said.

The committee’s recommendation is not binding on the Justice Department, and prosecutors will make their own assessment independent of the lawmakers’ report.

For Super, the committee’s findings “may give the Justice Department more freedom to follow the evidence it finds without being perceived as partisan,” he said, citing two Republican representatives who sat on the committee, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, endorsing its work and final report.

Cheney and Kinzinger sacrificed their political careers due to their steadfast criticism of Trump and his movement and through their work on the committee. The latter earned them a censure from the Republican Party, which otherwise refused to take part in or cooperate with the investigation.

Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, left Congress after losing the Republican primary last August against Trump-backed candidate Harriet Hageman. Kinzinger also won’t be a part of the 118th Congress as he announced last year that he would not seek reelection.

- Republicans retake US House

In the midterm elections last November, Republicans gained a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, which forced the Jan. 6 committee to end its work.

Asked how this will affect the investigation of that fateful day, Super said it “changes little,” since the committee was “largely finished in any event.”

“It seems likely that Republican House committee chairs will try to conduct hearings to distract from the efforts to overturn the 2020 election and may even try to show that prior investigations of those efforts were biased or corrupt in some way,” he said.

“I doubt that will have much impact because at this point, the investigation is in the hands of career prosecutors in the Justice Department, which generally need not be accountable to Congress,” he added.

Some House Republicans have suggested that they would oppose raising the US debt limit unless all investigations of former President Trump are defunded, but Super said those efforts are unlikely to gain traction due to opposition from the business community and “many Senate Republicans.”

- Trump’s inner circle

The committee’s final report also accused Trump and his “inner circle” of engaging in “at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach, pressure, or condemnation” targeting state legislators and election administrators to overturn the election results.

Asked about the investigation into Trump’s inner circle, Super said he “strongly suspects” some of them have already been cooperating with the Justice Department “in exchange for reduced charges or immunity from prosecution.”

“For others, I think indictments and criminal trials are likely,” he continued.

Addressing the possible culpability of the former president’s daughter and son-in-law, both of whom served in the White House, Super said: “I strongly doubt that the Justice Department will indict Ivana Trump or Jared Kushner even if it has sufficient evidence to do so. Too much of the public likely would object, even though they voluntarily took senior positions in the administration.

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HRW former head denied Harvard fellowship over ‘anti-Israel bias’

Kenneth Roth, the longtime head of Human Rights Watch, had his fellowship offer rescinded because of the organisation’s criticism of Israeli policies, according to The Nation.

Kenneth Roth has been described as the 'godfather' of human rights

 [File: Michael Sohn File/AP Photo]

Published On 6 Jan 2023

The Harvard Kennedy School in the United States rescinded a fellowship offer to the former head of Human Rights Watch (HRW) over the well-respected organisation’s criticism of Israeli government policies, US magazine The Nation has reported.

Kenneth Roth, who spent nearly three decades as the executive director of HRW before announcing his retirement in April, was offered to join as senior fellow by the executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, a centre he said he had been involved in since its founding in 1999.

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While the approval of the Harvard Kennedy School dean, Douglas Elmendorf, should have been a formality, the prominent human rights advocate was informed after a video conversation in July that his fellowship offer had been withdrawn.

Elmendorf allegedly cited an “anti-Israel bias” and Roth’s tweets on Israel, which he said were of particular concern.

In an article published on Friday by The Nation, Roth, who is Jewish and says he was drawn to the human rights cause by his father’s experience living in Nazi Germany, described the incident as “crazy” and said Elmendorf had “no backbone whatsoever”.

The US magazine reported that the Carr Center is among the smallest and poorest of the school’s subdivisions, with an eight-person staff and 32 fellows, and sits uncomfortably among other institutes at the Kennedy School that deal with defence policy, military strategy, and intelligence gathering.

Among them is the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “A look at its activities can help explain why Roth was deemed too hot to handle,” Michael Massing wrote in his piece for The Nation.

The centre counts former CIA Director David Petraeus among a long list of former intelligence brass taking part in its highest-profile initiatives. Among the 16 members of the Dean’s Executive Board is also Idan Ofer, son of Israeli shipping magnate Sammy Ofer, and his wife Batia.

After being vetoed by Harvard, Roth accepted a visiting fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.

The New York Times dubbed Roth the “godfather” of human rights in an article that noted how he had been “an unrelenting irritant to authoritarian governments, exposing human rights abuses with documented research reports that have become the group’s specialty”.

Under his leadership, HRW grew its budget from $7m to nearly $100m and went from 60 employees to 550, monitoring more than 100 countries.

The human rights watchdog played a prominent role in establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) and helped secure the convictions of Charles Taylor of Liberia, Alberto Fujimori of Peru, and the Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

In April 2021, HRW issued a report accusing Israel of practising a policy of apartheid towards the Palestinians, whose findings were echoed by Amnesty International in January 2022. The American Jewish Committee claimed that the organisation’s charges “sometimes border on antisemitism”.

The Kennedy School’s decision over Roth was met with outrage among some Harvard staff members, according to The Nation.

Kathryn Sikkink, the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School, sent an email to Elmendorf, detailing how data showed that “Human Rights Watch does not have a bias at all against Israel” and that to conclude otherwise “is misinformation”.

The dean answered that he had read her email but would not reconsider his decision.