Judge rejects Trump effort to toss lawsuits accusing him of Jan. 6 conspiracy

The ruling leaves Trump's inner circle vulnerable to another wave of deposition subpoenas and document demands. The ruling makes Trump potentially liable for conduct while he was the president.

The decision to deny the President immunity from civil damages is no small step. The court believes that its decision is consistent with the purposes behind immunity, as the alleged facts of this case are without precedent.

The people for Trump did not respond to the requests for comment. The former president's most sweeping defense to the suit, that he was acting in his official capacity as chief executive, was overruled by Mehta.

Several Capitol Police officers were injured in the violence and a dozen Democratic members of Congress brought lawsuits against Trump. They accused Trump of joining a civil conspiracy with groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who shared his goal of disrupting the transfer of power to Biden.

Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, Rep. MoBrooks, and the Proud Boys were all included in the suits. The suits against Trump, the Oath Keepers and Tarrio would be dropped, according to Mehta.

Mehta said that Trump's speech could be seen as legally amounting to making common cause with those who want to disrupt Congress.

The President's January 6 rally speech can be seen as a call for collective action. We will not take it anymore, we will stop the steal, and we will never give up.

Trump's lawyers and his political backers have said that the former president told his supporters to march to the Capitol peacefully and patriotically.

Those three words do not diminish the plausibility of the central conspiracy claim in the suit brought by the group of House members.

Mehta ruled that the claim was sound enough to proceed to the discovery phase of the case.

The President and his campaign wanted to send thousands to the Capitol while the certification was going on. It was not part of the plan. Mehta wrote that the permit explicitly stated that it did not authorize a march from the Ellipse.

It is plausible that the President wanted to disrupt the efforts to certify the Electoral College votes by calling on rally-goers to march to the Capitol.