Donald Trump Gets Hit With Flurry of Lawsuits

Former President Donald Trump is facing multiple January 6-related civil lawsuits after an appeals court referenced an earlier case involving his perceived immunity from legal recourse.

Trump is accused of inciting the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot by spreading unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud to his 2020 election supporters. It led to a violent protest as part of a larger effort to block Joe Biden's 2020 Electoral College victory. Trump has maintained his innocence, accusing prosecutors of investigating him to derail him politically.

In August, Trump was indicted by the Department of Justice on four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

The efforts of the likely Republican presidential candidate, on pace for a rematch with President Joe Biden in November, have been ridiculed by the chief prosecutor in the case, Jack Smith, who has complained to the trial judge, Tanya Chutkan, that Trump is trying to delay the case until after the presidential election.

The newest court filing on March 8 in the Washington, D.C., Circuit references the previously litigated Blassingame v. Trump, in which the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia considered whether Trump is entitled to absolute presidential immunity from damages liability for his alleged role in the Capitol riot.

On February 18, 2022, judges ruled in James Blassingame's favor and rejected Trump's claim that he is immune from all claims associated with January 6.

"Blassingame held that former President Donald J. Trump lacks presidential immunity for actions that he took 'in his personal capacity as presidential candidate,' as opposed to 'in his official capacity as sitting President,'" judges wrote in Friday's filing, allowing similar suits to move ahead.

The question of whether Trump has "presidential immunity" will be deliberated by the U.S. Supreme Court, which critics have warned could play in to the former president's hands by delaying proceedings—in a similar fashion that proceedings have largely been delayed in all four of Trump's criminal trials, minus his alleged "hush money" payments case that is scheduled to begin this month in New York City.

On Monday, one day before the Super Tuesday primaries, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump would be eligible on state primary ballots where he was previously removed, including Colorado, Maine and Illinois.

Karen Friedman Agnifilo, former chief assistant district attorney of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, told Newsweek via email that the ballot case was "no doubt a victory for Trump" and no less on the same day his trial in the D.C. election interference was originally scheduled to begin.

"However, [the Supreme Court] did not rule on the ultimate question on whether or not he is an insurrectionist, and it is very interesting to see that Justice [Amy] Comey Barrett isn't necessarily in lockstep with her conservative counterparts when she provided insight into her thinking in her concurring opinion," Agnifilo said.