Donald Trump’s legal team is looking for evidence from government agencies that the former president’s Jan. 6, 2021, rally speech, where he told his supporters to “fight like hell” to change the outcome of the election, was actually “official conduct.”
In this case, this search is not about special counsel Jack Smith’s highly watched criminal case against Trump. Rather, it’s part of an effort to avoid a civil court battle that could seriously cost the former president, even if he wins the election in November.
With less than two weeks to go before a deadline set by a federal judge, Trump’s team is now signaling that they won’t finish their evidence gathering on time. The group of lawsuits filed by police officers and Democratic members of Congress seeks to hold Trump personally liable for the plaintiffs’ physical and emotional injuries during the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump’s lawyers say they need more time to hear back from federal agencies in a long shot attempt to bolster their defensive strategy.