Capitol police officers sue Trump over Jan. 6 riot

Seven U.S Capitol Police officers sued former President Donald Trump on Thursday over the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol and his dangerous election falsehoods leading up to the riot.

The federal lawsuit said the siege of the Capitol resulted in the “brutal, physical assault of hundreds of law enforcement officers,” and also named Roger Stone and the Trump campaign as defendants, as well as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, a pair of far-right groups.

The 71-page complaint, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., said Trump “encouraged the use of force, intimidation, and threats to try to stop the Congressional count of electoral votes on January 6.”

The suit joined a trio of similar cases filed in recent months.

Some 140 cops — roughly half of them from the Capitol Police department — were wounded in the attack, according to authorities.

“These officers, they put their lives on the line on Jan. 6,” said Edward Caspar, an attorney who is leading the suit for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “The officers stood up that day, and they’re standing up now, because they don’t want anything like this to happen again.”

Before the riot, Trump gave a speech to his supporters, telling them: “You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” He told them to march to the Capitol to encourage Republicans to “take back our country.”

Trump has never given up on his baseless claims that he won the November presidential election. But he was forced to give up his Facebook and Twitter access after the stunning Capitol siege.

A spokesperson for Trump didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the suit filed Thursday.

The complaint claimed Trump violated the Ku Klux Klan Act, a 150-year-old federal civil rights act, as well as the D.C. Bias-Related Crimes Act. The court papers said the defendants’ efforts were awash in racism.

Five of the cops who brought the case are Black.

Lawyers for the officers said in the suit that the defendants “targeted false claims of election fraud at cities and states with significant Black populations.”

The court papers also noted that “after breaching the Capitol, the attackers paraded the Confederate flag and other symbols of white supremacy through the Capitol’s halls.”