Barbara Lee is still fighting in court to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6

Barbara Lee was on the ground of Congress when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a violent try and overturn the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election.

In the present day, Lee is now not a member of Congress, however the mayor of Oakland continues to be attempting to carry President Donald Trump accountable for his alleged position in encouraging the attempted uprising.

On Friday, Lee appeared in federal courtroom in Washington DC for a key listening to in a lawsuit she is concerned in in opposition to the president. The lawsuit, filed practically 5 years in the past by the NAACP and several other members of Congress, accuses Trump of conspiring to cease the certification of the election outcomes that eliminated him from workplace.

Trump held a rally for 1000’s of his supporters on January 6, 2021, on the Ellipse, a park close to the White Home. Many individuals attended after his speech marched to the Capitol, the place they climbed partitions, broke home windows and fought with cops whereas serving as lawmakers hidden or distorted to security. Throughout the ensuing chaos, a rioter was shot lifeless by Capitol Police and dozens of individuals had been injured, together with cops.

Many contributors within the riot had been subsequently charged, convicted and imprisoned. Additionally a grand jury indicted Trump in 2023 for allegedly conspiring to intervene with the election. The costs had been rejected shortly after Trump was re-elected in November 2024. And as president, he pardoned more than 1,200 people who had been convicted of crimes dedicated through the assault on the Capitol.

In accordance with the attorneys behind the lawsuit, this is likely one of the newest civil actions difficult Trump’s position within the assault on the Capitol. If the courtroom dismisses the case, it would imply there’s “no authorized recourse to aim to carry President Trump accountable for his position on January 6, 2021,” mentioned Joseph Sellers, a accomplice at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll who’s representing Lee and different plaintiffs.

Lee instructed reporters outdoors the courthouse that nobody is above the legislation, however “I imagine the dialogue in courtroom in the present day has revealed the truth that there are some on this nation who imagine a president might be above the legislation.”

Trump’s authorized crew has argued that the case shouldn’t transfer ahead as a result of he has presidential immunity in opposition to civil lawsuits. His attorneys additionally requested Decide Amit Mehta to rethink an earlier ruling by which he refused to dismiss the case on the grounds that Trump exercised his proper to freedom of expression on January 6.

Mehta has obtained arguments from each side and is predicted to make a ruling sooner or later.

Lee was an outspoken critic of Trump when she was a member of Congress. As mayor of Oakland, Lee has continued to criticize the president for pushing federal laws that cuts well being care and meals help funding and for making deceptive statements about crime in Oakland.

Tensions spiked in Oakland in October after federal immigration brokers had been deployed to a Coast Guard base close to the town for doable operations in San Francisco and the remainder of the Bay Space. Lee and different metropolis leaders responded by reassuring residents that they had been ready to handle any enforcement actions.

The NAACP first filed go well with in opposition to Trump on February 16, 2021, on behalf of Consultant Bennie G. Thompson. Ten different members of Congress, together with Lee, joined the lawsuit two months later. The lawsuit additionally named as defendants the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group, and the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia, as a result of their members participated within the riot. The lawsuit relies on a Law of 1871 which was initially established to guard folks from Ku Klux Klan violence.

“January 6 was not solely an assault on Congress, it was additionally an assault on the voting rights of thousands and thousands of People,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson mentioned in an announcement. “The courtroom stays the one impartial venue able to offering a factual, apolitical account of what occurred. We imagine on this course of and we imagine that accountability will prevail.”

In March 2023, when Joe Biden was president, the Justice Division issued a call recommendation to the courtroom listening to the lawmaker’s lawsuit {that a} president’s speech “on a matter of public significance is just not protected by absolute immunity if it constitutes an incitement to threatened personal violence.” The next yr, a federal courtroom in D.C. denied Trump’s request to remain the lawsuit pending decision of the case criminal case in opposition to him for his alleged position within the tried rebellion. That case was dismissed shortly after Trump received the presidential election in November 2024.

Lee, who turned the lead plaintiff within the civil go well with in 2023, thanked Capitol cops who defended lawmakers from rioters on Jan. 6. She mentioned a number of folks reported utilizing racial slurs through the riot. Lee additionally thanked the NAACP and mentioned her mom was one of many plaintiffs in a lawsuit the group filed in Texas. integrate Texas Western School.

“The NAACP has a convention of preventing for equal justice below the legislation,” Lee mentioned. “That is one other a type of instances, we’re transferring ahead.”