“Therefore, in the factual context of this case, Phillips’s ‘blocking’ statements are protected opinions,” he concluded. “This would put the reader on notice that Phillips was simply giving his perspective on the incident.”īertelsman added, "Phillips' statement did not imply the existence of any nondisclosed defamatory facts, and only under such circumstances does a statement of opinion lose its constitutional protection." 6 riot, rejecting his assertion that hes. “The media defendants were covering a matter of great public interest, and they reported Phillips’s first-person view of what he experienced,” he wrote. A federal judge on Tuesday denied former President Donald Trumps bid to dismiss three lawsuits brought against him by police officers injured in the Jan. The judge said the press did not defame Sandmann by reporting Phillips' version of the incident, since his statements were opinions and not facts. And because the reader knew from the articles that this encounter occurred at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, he or she would know that the confrontation occurred in an expansive area such that it would be difficult to know what might constitute 'blocking' another person in that setting," Bertelsman wrote. "Instead, a reasonable reader would understand that Phillips was simply conveying his view of the situation. If youre a business, or an individual who filed a form other than 1040, you can obtain a transcript by submitting Form 4506-T, Request for Transcript. Note that each Account Transcript only covers a single tax year, and may not show the most recent penalties, interest, changes or pending actions. Sandmann's legal team argued that the reports had "conveyed false and defamatory charges," and that the media companies had malicious intent in publishing them.īut the judge found that Phillips' statements about Sandmann's actions were "objectively unverifiable and thus unactionable opinions.” You can request an Account Transcript by mail. “We’re fully prepared to argue these cases in the 6th Circuit," Sandmann said in a statement.īertelsman's opinion was centered on statements published by the news outlets in which Phillips had claimed Sandmann had "blocked" and "would not allow" him to retreat from the Lincoln Memorial. In a 48-page filing, Trump's lawyers said Mehta had allowed the civil lawsuits to proceed against the former president out of a distaste for Trump's speech on January 6, in which the then-president encouraged his supporters to "fight like hell.Sandmann's attorney, Todd McMurtry, told the Lexington Herald-Leader he was "disappointed" with the decision from United States District Eastern Kentucky Court Judge William Bertelsman and planned to file an appeal. Mehta's ruling came a week after Trump asked a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, to grant him immunity from civil lawsuits alleging that his fiery speech on January 6 incited the mob that stormed the Capitol. "Accordingly, President Trump's motions to dismiss are denied," Mehta wrote. "The court does not needlessly repeat its reasoning here, but simply adopts and incorporates it by reference," Mehta wrote, specifically that Trump's actions on January 6 "'entirely concern his efforts to remain in office for a second term' and therefore do not fall within the 'outer perimeter' of a president's official responsibilities."
Trump, in which US Capitol Police officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby sued Trump for damages related to injuries they suffered during the riot. Mehta, an Obama appointee, wrote that "the court already rejected President Trump's assertion of immunity" in Blassingame v. In seeking the dismissal, Trump's lawyers said that he was absolutely immune from civil litigation related to the Capitol riot, because he was acting within the "outer perimeter" of his presidential duties.īut US District Judge Amit Mehta refused to dismiss the lawsuits on those grounds, noting that he had previously rejected a nearly identical assertion of absolute immunity that Trump raised in response to other civil lawsuits filed by House Democrats and two Capitol Police officers.
6 concerned "efforts to remain in office for a second term."Ī federal judge on Tuesday rejected Donald Trump's request to toss three civil lawsuits in which Capitol Police officers allege that the former president bears responsibility for injuries law enforcement suffered during the January 6, 2021, attack. The same judge previously dismissed a nearly identical immunity claim that Trump made. A judge rejected Trump's claim that he's immune from civil litigation related to the Capitol riot.