While criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump are being shut down, civil cases against him can go forward.
Legal analysts Adam Klasfeld and Norman L. Eisen penned a column for Just Security explaining that the legal battles aren't over for Donald Trump.
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, "a sitting president may be subject to civil lawsuits while in office, and Trump is the defendant in several civil cases alleging wrongdoing for trying to deprive citizens of their votes and for the Capitol riot," the authors cited.
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There's no risk of being thrown in jail, and the consequences for Trump would be entirely financial. That said, those cases could be the only real way of "establishing an authoritative record of the events on and around Jan. 6," the men said.
There are currently five lawsuits related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and "D.C. District Court Judge Amit Mehta consolidated four of those cases, and D.C. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan is presiding separately over another.
The four in Mehta's court began with Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who headed up the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) took over as the lead plaintiff after Thompson withdrew to chair the committee. The suit included Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers as well as their leaders and other militias and paramilitary organizations. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) filed another complaint naming others, but Donald Trump Jr., former Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), and Rudy Giuliani were removed from the defense in those cases.
There are two groups of U.S. Capitol Police officers who are suing Trump for their injuries.
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"Officer James Blassingame, then a 17-year veteran of the force and a Black man, filed the first of these police-led lawsuits, which described the racist abuse, violence and trauma that he suffered holding back the mob from the Capitol," the report continued.
Other officers are leading a group of officers against Trump's campaign entities as well as the militia groups and other individuals.
"Trump broadly stands accused of neglect, conspiring to interfere with civil rights, and violating the Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction-era law originally drafted to deter white supremacist groups from interfering with the civil rights of freed slaves," the lawyers said.
Then there's the other case that Trump faces in Judge Chutkan's court, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization v. Trump.
"The original complaint accused Trump of violating the Voting Rights Act through a conspiracy targeting areas with large Black populations with bogus fraud claims, particularly in Detroit, Michigan. The NAACP later joined an amended version of that lawsuit, which broadened the focus nationally and also included a claim under the KKK Act," the report cited.
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So, while Trump may not be headed to jail, he's still heading to court and Jan. 6 will have its day in court if Trump refuses to settle the cases.
