“It’s advice that the judge can use to rule on those civil cases against Trump,” says US correspondent Jan Postma. Some of these cases are already in court. Trump has said in the past that he cannot face the charges because he enjoys presidential immunity. ‘But the judiciary now says this does not apply, in connection with the social interest. Trump may have called for violence in his speech before the storming of the Capitol.
Legally difficult
Even if the judge accepts the advice, which is not yet certain, according to Postma it will not be easy to prove that Trump is really guilty. “You have to show that he went beyond inflammatory language, that he specifically and knowingly called for violence. All the lawyers say it will be quite difficult.’
Trump paid close attention to the wording he used during the speech. “He has a lot of experience with litigation and knows exactly how far he can go in cases like this,” says Postma. “Like, he said ‘we’ll walk to the Capitol and I’ll walk with you’, but not literally that the mob should have stormed the Capitol. And he talked about fighting, but he was always figurative. Figuratively speaking, he gave the matches and the oil for the fire, but it is legally difficult to prove that he also lit the fire himself.’
Lawsuits
There are currently three civil cases against Trump in court. “One is from two police officers who suffered damage as a result of the assault. There is also a case of two Democratic members of Congress who were also in danger that day. And in one of the cases, Trump is also accused of refusing to intervene for so long when things got out of hand on January 6th.