Judge Rejects Trump’s Effort to Delay Jan. 6 Civil Cases
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The former president had sought to have lawsuits against him put on hold until after his federal criminal trial on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.
A federal judge on Thursday rejected former President Donald J. Trump’s attempt to delay a group of civil lawsuits that are seeking to hold him accountable for inspiring the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mr. Trump had sought to have the suits put on hold until after the completion of his federal criminal trial connected to many of the same events. But in a nine-page ruling, the judge, Amit P. Mehta, decided that the civil lawsuits could move forward without running the risk that Mr. Trump might damage his chances in the criminal case by revealing his defense strategy prematurely or making statements that prosecutors might use against him.
Last month, when lawyers for Mr. Trump first asked Judge Mehta to postpone the civil cases, it was the latest example of the former president seeking to pit his multiple legal matters against one another in an effort to delay them.
In the past few days, Mr. Trump has also sought to push back an important filing deadline he is facing in his classified documents case in Florida by arguing that the lawyers who have to write the court papers in question need more time because they are busy representing him at yet another criminal trial — the one in Manhattan where he stands accused of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal on the eve of the 2016 election.
While Judge Mehta’s decision to let the civil suits move forward struck a blow against Mr. Trump’s delay tactics, he and his lawyers have been remarkably successful overall at throwing sand into the gears of all four of the criminal cases he is facing. The Manhattan trial, which is now in jury selection, may turn out to be the only one of the four to go in front of a jury before this fall’s election.
The Jan. 6 civil suits are an often forgotten aspect of the barrage of legal proceedings confronting Mr. Trump. In the months after the Capitol attack, a half-dozen of them were filed by members of Congress and police officers who were at the building that day, accusing Mr. Trump of inciting the mob that stormed the building.
