‘Definitely something’: Here’s what the FBI said about Trump’s ‘Stop the Steal’ speech in the lead up to Jan. 6

Donald Trump at the Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to his supporters at Save America Rally on the Ellipse near the White House in Washington on January 6, 2021 Photo by Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Sipa USA (Sipa via AP Images).

Donald Trump urged a federal court to toss out a series of lawsuits filed against him by members of Congress for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, arguing that holding him liable for the riot would unconstitutionally violate his First Amendment rights. To articulate this point, Trump’s attorneys compared his speech at the Ellipse to a rapper known for “aggressive, provocative lyrics.”

This consolidated series of lawsuits stems from a complaint made by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the former chairman of the now-defunct House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as lead plaintiff Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and others like Reps. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif. and police officers including Conrad Smith, Bobby Tabron, Briana Kirkland and others.

The parties collectively contend that Trump, acting in his personal capacity, violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, a law barring mob violence directed at federal officials, and they have made allegations of physical and emotional injury because of his conduct leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021.

In a 35-page motion filed Friday in the federal district court in Washington, D.C., Trump asked the court to reverse a previous ruling which held that the plaintiffs in the case had plausibly alleged that Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech had “incited the crowd to violence.”

The filing posits a hypothetical rapper who is “ranked as one of the most controversial lyricists of all time” and is “particularly popular among angsty teenagers.” It specifically refers to Chief Justice John Roberts reciting rapper Eminem’s lyrics about drowning his wife in the song “97 Bonnie and Clyde” during oral arguments in an unrelated case in 2014.

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