Former President Donald Trump was accused Trump in a civil lawsuit of causing the wrongful death of officer Brian Sicknick in the attack on the US Capitol.
The estate of Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who died after responding to the January 6, 2021 attack, is suing two assailants involved in the attack and former President Donald Trump for their alleged role in inciting it, according to CNN.
The civil lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., adds to Donald Trump’s problems related to his efforts to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after his 2020 election loss.
Trump is already a defendant in several other civil lawsuits related to January 6, where he has argued that his presidency makes him immune from liability.
The Sicknick estate’s lawsuit was filed the day before the two-year anniversary of the attack on the Capitol.
“While Officer Sicknick and hundreds of others, including other police officers, elected officials and rank and file workers on Capitol Hill, were in danger of death, and while the insurgent mob desecrated the headquarters of American Democracy, defendant Trump watched as the events were taking place on live television from the safety of the White House,” attorneys for Sicknick’s estate and his partner Sandra Garza wrote in the complaint.
“The horrific events of January 6, 2021, including the tragic and wrongful death of Officer Sicknick, were a direct and foreseeable consequence of Defendants’ unlawful actions,” the lawsuit continues.
The lawsuit alleges that Trump instructed his supporters in Washington on January 6 to “fight like crazy” and “show strength” in his speech before the riots on Capitol Hill.
Julian Khater and George Tanios, the two Capitol raiders named in the lawsuit, pleaded guilty last summer to crimes related to the attack. They are scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
During the riot, Khater took bear spray from Tanios’ backpack, sprayed Sicknick and other officers in their faces, and forced them back as rioters advanced on the Capitol steps.
Sicknick suffered multiple strokes and died of natural causes the day after the attack on the Capitol, according to a 2021 report from D.C.’s chief medical examiner. The examiner, Francisco Díaz, told the Washington Post that “everything that happened” on January 6 “played a role in his condition.”
Sicknick’s wrongful death indictment against Trump marks the most serious allegation to date that the former president was responsible for the Jan. 6 attack.
Sicknick’s lawyers are asking the court for damages of more than $10 million.
Criminal investigations are also underway around January 6, including an investigation into Trump-backed bids to disrupt Joe Biden’s victory that is now led by special counsel Jack Smith.