US appeals court shoots down Trump’s immunity argument in lawsuit filed by Jan. 6 cops

US Capitol Police officers who were harmed battling supporters of former President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 can move forward with their lawsuits, following a Friday ruling from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Messenger reported that the DC Circuit affirmed a previous decision from the US District Court for the District of Columbia — whose docket has been packed with January 6-related cases in the years following the deadly riot – that the former president was not immune from accountability in civil matters concerning the Blassingame v. Trump case.

"President Trump had contended that he should be afforded immunity because his alleged actions constituted speech on matters of public concern. Such speech was, in his view, 'invariably an official function.' We rejected that argument," the ruling read.

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"The salient question in Blassingame, we explained, was instead whether President Trump’s alleged actions reasonably could be understood as official functions of the presidency, in which case official-act immunity would attach, or, alternatively, whether they reasonably could be understood only as re-election activity, in which case it would not," the court added.

Plaintiffs James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby, both of whom are US Capitol police officers, sued Trump for $75,000 apiece, claiming that his debunked claims about the 2020 election resulted in a mob of his supporters breaching their workplace and inflicting both physical and mental injuries to officers in the process.

The latest ruling from the DC Circuit rejecting the former president's claims of civil immunity comes shortly after the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals came to a similar conclusion earlier this week in the ongoing defamation lawsuit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump had previously claimed in that case that because his 2019 statement suggesting Carroll was fabricating her allegations that Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York City department store in the 1990s was made while he was president, he shouldn't be held accountable in court. The 2nd Circuit on Thursday rejected that claim.

Trump's assertion of absolute presidential immunity would ostensibly be just for him, as the former president has stated on the campaign stump that if elected to a second term, he would deputize his Department of Justice to prosecute Biden and his family. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals is set to hear oral argument concerning Trump's claims of immunity from criminal matters on January 8.

READ MORE: US appeals court hands Trump another loss in E. Jean Carroll case