Lawyer for Capitol Officers Suing Trump Says They Want to Know Why Rioters Weren’t ‘Called Off Until They’d Hurt So Many People’

Patrick Malone, the lawyer for Capitol Police Officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby, said that one of the goals of his clients’ lawsuit against former President Donald Trump is to find out why it took so long for the rioters that attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6 to be “called off.”

“Our civil justice system is a powerful weapon for truth and for accountability. You can get a lot of discovery in a civil case that does not happen in criminal court nearly as well,” Malone told Jim Sciutto, who was guest hosting Anderson Cooper 360 on Wednesday. “We [can] find out exactly what was going on in the White House when all these events were happening at the Capitol and why the rioters were not called off until they’d hurt so many people.”

In their lawsuit, the officers allege that Trump “inflamed, encouraged, incited, directed, and aided and abetted” his supporters to assault them, and that they suffered both physical injuries and emotional distress.

“There is a lot the civil justice system can do and the whole idea of a lawsuit is called compensation,” Malone said. “Compensation just means balancing it out, so you balance out the harm that happened to somebody with money and money is a language that this former president knows how to speak.”

The Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol took place after a “Stop the Steal” rally, where Trump encouraged his supporters to walk to the Capitol in an effort to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Five people died in connection with the attack, and more than 400 people are facing criminal charges.

You can watch above, via CNN.

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