The Justice Department has intervened for former President Donald Trump, asking a federal court in Washington to dismiss a civil complaint brought over a clash between protestors and police that took place in the city following George Floyd’s death.
Black Lives Matter D.C. and others brought the original lawsuit in June 2020, just days after police used crowd control tactics in Lafayette Square before Trump was set to appear at a nearby church.
The case has seen court filings for years, with a group of plaintiffs filing an amended complaint in April this year.
On Aug. 19, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a notice that it was substituting itself for Trump because he was acting within the scope of his office that day.
Its decision was based on the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA).
In its notice, the DOJ said the law “provides that upon certification by the attorney general that a federal employee was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the plaintiff’s claim arose, any civil action or proceeding commenced upon such a claim and arising under state law shall be deemed an action against the United States, and the United States shall be substituted as the defendant with respect to those claims.”
James G. Touhey, who leads the torts branch of DOJ’s civil division, certified that Trump “was an employee of the government acting in the scope of office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the plaintiffs’ claims arose.”
The amended complaint had named Trump in his individual capacity and requested damages. It alleged Trump was liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault, battery, and negligence in purported violation of a district law surrounding free speech.
A separate motion to dismiss, also filed on Aug. 19, argued that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ claims because they failed to exhaust administrative remedies.
It added that the plaintiffs had failed to show that their claims fell within the limited waiver of sovereign immunity offered by the FTCA.
The complaint alleged that the agencies involved with the suit had failed to respond within a six-month timeframe specified under the FTCA.
“Plaintiffs have therefore exhausted their administrative remedies under the FTCA,” the complaint read.
The DOJ’s actions came against the backdrop of broader controversy about Trump’s immunity and the federal government’s involvement in his legal battles.
Special Counsel Jack Smith prompted a legal battle that ultimately resulted in the Supreme Court establishing a landmark precedent on presidential immunity in July.
That case focused on criminal liability, but presidents have long enjoyed broad immunity from civil liability for actions that fall within the outer perimeter of their official duties.
In 2023, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the former president could not avoid civil liability in a suit from injured Capitol Police officers.
In that case, DOJ attorneys told the court that a president would not be protected by “absolute immunity” if his words were found to have been an “incitement of imminent private violence.”
Trump has denied wrongdoing associated with the U.S. Capitol breach on Jan. 6, 2021, and his attorneys said he didn’t intend to spark violence.
The DOJ had supported Trump in the lawsuit between him and writer E. Jean Carroll but reversed it in 2023.
In a July 11 letter to attorneys for Trump and Carroll, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton said the DOJ could no longer conclude the former president was acting in his capacity as president when he made the allegedly defamatory statements about Carroll.
