The lawsuits are piling up on Trump’s gilded Lawsuits Table.

Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson is suing former President Trump, Rudy Giuliani and two far-right groups — the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers — for allegedly conspiring to incite the deadly violence on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.

The lawsuit, filed on Thompson’s behalf by the NAACP and the civil rights law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, accuses Trump and the other defendants of violating the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act by trying to interfere in Congress’ certification of the Electoral College count. The legislation was part of a series of Enforcement Acts at the time intended to protect the enfranchisement of Black citizens from violence and intimidation.

Lets follow that link on the Act to learn more about it.

The Ku Klux Klan Act, the third of a series of increasingly stringent Enforcement Acts, was designed to eliminate extralegal violence and protect the civil and political rights of four million freed slaves. The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, defined citizenship and guaranteed due process and equal protection of the law to all. Vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan, however, freely threatened African Americans and their white allies in the South and undermined the Republican Party’s plan for Reconstruction. The bill authorized the President to intervene in the former rebel states that attempted to deny “any person or any class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges or immunities under the laws.” To take action against this newly defined federal crime, the President could suspend habeas corpus, deploy the U.S. military, or use “other means, as he may deem necessary.” Opponents denounced the bill as an unconstitutional attack on state governments and individual liberty.

That is, the individual liberty of white men to use violence to keep former slaves terrorized and informally enslaved.

Back to NPR:

After the vote [on impeachment], the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, delivered a scathing speech in which he blamed Trump for the violence on Jan. 6 but said he voted to acquit because he believes a former president can’t be tried by the Senate. McConnell also said Trump can be held liable in the court system.

Thompson’s lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and seeks compensatory and punitive damages, aims to do just that.

“I am privileged to partner with the NAACP to have my day in court so that the perpetrators of putting members of Congress at risk can be held accountable,” Thompson told reporters Tuesday.

The main sweep of allegations, and many of the details as well, presented in the lawsuit mirror those made by House managers in Trump’s impeachment trial. It alleges that Trump spent months pushing baseless claims about election fraud, primed his supporters with lies, and ultimately directed them Jan. 6 at the Capitol.

On live tv.

Thompson, who represents Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District, was at the Capitol when the mob overran the building. The lawsuit says he was in Gallery C of the House to vote on the Electoral College ballots when the attack began.

Thompson heard rioters pounding on the doors of the House chamber, it says, and saw security guards blocka[d]e the door with furniture.

“Plaintiff Thompson heard a gunshot, the source of which, at the time, was unknown to him, although he later learned that it had killed one of the rioters who had forced her way into the Capitol lobby,” the suit says.

Thompson and other lawmakers were told to lie on the floor and put on gas masks. Eventually, he and his colleagues were able to leave the gallery. They sought shelter in a room with some 200-300 others, including lawmakers, staff and family.

“During this entire time, Plaintiff Thompson reasonably feared for his physical safety,” the lawsuit says. “While trapped in the building, during the siege by the rioters that Defendants unleashed on the Capitol, Plaintiff Thompson feared for his life and worried that he might never see his family again.”

The lawsuit notes that this all took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that Thompson, who is in his 70s, is at high risk to the virus. After the siege ended, it says, two lawmakers who sheltered in place with Thompson tested positive for COVID-19.

Git’im.