A federal judge ruled on Monday that former President Donald Trump does not have “absolute immunity” regarding his actions connected to the 2020 presidential election.
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the DC District Court ruled against Trump’s legal team who argued that he can’t be sued in civil court by civil rights groups who claim he attempted to disenfranchise voters in the election, according to CNN.
Sullivan said that the former president does not have “absolute immunity” and can be held liable in the case.
The judge said he will let the NAACP and the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization rewrite their lawsuit against Trump. But the judge has yet to pronounce on whether Trump is liable in the case.
“If former President Trump disrupted the certification of the electoral vote count, as plaintiffs allege here, such actions would not constitute executive action in defense of the Constitution. For these reasons, the Court concludes that former President Trump is not immune from monetary damages in this suit,” Sullivan wrote in the ruling.
He added that Trump’s conduct during the 2020 and 2022 election demonstrated that Trump could “pose a very substantial risk in the future to plaintiffs’ fundamental right to vote.”
“President Trump continues to spread false claims about the 2022 elections and continues to attempt to pressure officials into nullifying the election results: Plaintiffs extensively allege the efforts of former President Trump and his allies as recently as March 2022 to get state officials to overturn the election results; to endorse and provide financial support to candidates for office who supported his false claims of election fraud; all while fundraising for the 2024 presidential election. These allegations are perhaps the opposite of what the Trump defendants term ‘vague suggestions of fear or intimidation,'" said the judge’s ruling.