Blassingame v. Trump
| Docket Number | 22-5069,22-7030,22-7031 |
| Decision Date | 01 December 2023 |
| Parties | James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby, Appellees v. Donald J. Trump, Appellant |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Argued December 7, 2022
Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:21-cv-00858) (No. 1:21-cv-00586) (No. 1:21-cv-00400)
Jesse R. Binnall argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs were David A. Warrington, Jonathan M. Shaw, and Gary M. Lawkowski.
Joseph M. Sellers argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Brian Corman, Alison S. Deich, Philip Andonian Patrick A. Malone, Heather J. Kelly, Anna Kathryn Barnes Matthew Kaiser, Sarah R. Fink, Cameron Kistler, Erica Newland, Kristy Parker, Helen E. White, Genevieve C. Nadeau and Benjamin L. Berwick.
Elizabeth B. Wydra and Brianne J. Gorod were on the brief for amici curiae Law Professors in support of appellees.
Joshua Matz, Raymond P. Tolentino, Carmen Iguina Gonzalez, and Alysha M. Naik were on the brief for amici curiae Former White House and Department of Justice Officials in support of appellees.
Joseph M. Meyer, Debo P. Adegbile, and Mark C. Fleming were on the brief for amici curiae Former Diplomats and Foreign Policy Officials in support of appellees.
Kathleen R. Hartnett and David S. Louk were on the brief for amicus curiae Jared Holt in support of appellees.
Before: SRINIVASAN, Chief Judge, KATSAS, Circuit Judge, and ROGERS, Senior Circuit Judge.
Since the Supreme Court's decision in Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731 (1982), Presidents have carried out their official responsibilities free from any exposure to civil damages liability. Nixon established a President's absolute immunity from civil damages claims predicated on his official acts. The object of a President's official-act immunity is to assure that he can fearlessly and impartially discharge the singularly weighty duties of the office.
The President, though, does not spend every minute of every day exercising official responsibilities. And when he acts outside the functions of his office, he does not continue to enjoy immunity from damages liability just because he happens to be the President. Rather, as the Supreme Court made clear in Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997), a President's official-act immunity by nature does not extend to his unofficial actions. When he acts in an unofficial, private capacity, he is subject to civil suits like any private citizen.
This appeal calls for us to apply those key decisional precedents on presidential immunity to a decidedly unprecedented event involving the presidency: the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, just as Congress convened to tabulate the Electoral College vote and declare the person elected President. The plaintiffs in the cases before us are Capitol Police officers and members of Congress who were at the Capitol that day. They seek civil damages for harms they allege they suffered arising from the riot. Although they sue various persons, the sole defendant named in all the cases consolidated before us is former President Donald J. Trump.
The plaintiffs contend that, during President Trump's final months in office, he conspired with political allies and supporters to obtain a second term despite his defeat in the 2020 election. He allegedly advanced that cause before January 6 by repeatedly making false claims that the election might be (and then had been) stolen, filing meritless lawsuits challenging the election results, and pressuring state and local officials to reverse the election outcomes in their jurisdictions. Those efforts allegedly culminated in the 75-minute speech President Trump delivered at the rally on January 6. According to the plaintiffs, President Trump's actions, including ultimately his speech on January 6, sparked the ensuing riot at the Capitol.
President Trump moved in the district court to dismiss the claims against him, including on grounds of a President's official-act immunity from damages liability. The district court largely rejected his claim of immunity, and President Trump now appeals. The sole issue before us is whether President Trump has demonstrated an entitlement to official-act immunity for his actions leading up to and on January 6 as alleged in the complaints.
We answer no, at least at this stage of the proceedings. When a first-term President opts to seek a second term, his campaign to win re-election is not an official presidential act. The Office of the Presidency as an institution is agnostic about who will occupy it next. And campaigning to gain that office is not an official act of the office. So, when a sitting President running for a second term attends a private fundraiser for his re-election effort, hires (or fires) his campaign staff, cuts a political ad supporting his candidacy, or speaks at a campaign rally funded and organized by his re-election campaign committee, he is not carrying out the official duties of the presidency. He is acting as office-seeker, not office-holder- no less than are the persons running against him when they take precisely the same actions in their competing campaigns to attain precisely the same office.
President Trump himself recognized that he engaged in his campaign to win re-election-including his post-election efforts to alter the declared results in his favor-in his personal capacity as presidential candidate, not in his official capacity as sitting President. That is evident in his effort to intervene in the Supreme Court's consideration of a post-election lawsuit challenging the administration of the election in various battleground states. He expressly filed his motion in the Supreme Court "in his personal capacity as candidate for reelection to the office of President" rather than in his official capacity as sitting President. Trump Mot. to Intervene 3, Texas v. Pennsylvania, No. 22O155 (U.S. 2020). And he grounded his claimed right to intervene in the case in his "unique and substantial personal interests as a candidate for re-election to the Office of President" rather than in any official interest in exercising the office's duties. Id. at 24.
In arguing that he is entitled to official-act immunity in the cases before us, President Trump does not dispute that he engaged in his alleged actions up to and on January 6 in his capacity as a candidate. But he thinks that does not matter. Rather, in his view, a President's speech on matters of public concern is invariably an official function, and he was engaged in that function when he spoke at the January 6 rally and in the leadup to that day. We cannot accept that rationale. While Presidents are often exercising official responsibilities when they speak on matters of public concern, that is not always the case. When a sitting President running for re-election speaks in a campaign ad or in accepting his political party's nomination at the party convention, he typically speaks on matters of public concern. Yet he does so in an unofficial, private capacity as office-seeker, not an official capacity as office-holder. And actions taken in an unofficial capacity cannot qualify for official-act immunity.
While we thus reject President Trump's argument for official-act immunity at this stage, that result is necessarily tied to the need to assume the truth of the plaintiffs' factual allegations at this point in the proceedings. President Trump has not had a chance to counter those allegations with facts of his own. When these cases move forward in the district court, he must be afforded the opportunity to develop his own facts on the immunity question if he desires to show that he took the actions alleged in the complaints in his official capacity as President rather than in his unofficial capacity as a candidate. At the appropriate time, he can move for summary judgment on his claim of official-act immunity.
Because our decision is not necessarily even the final word on the issue of presidential immunity, we of course express no view on the ultimate merits of the claims against President Trump. Nor do we have any occasion to address his other defenses, including his claim that his alleged actions fall within the protections of the First Amendment because they did not amount to incitement of imminent lawless action: he did not seek appellate review at this time of the district court's denial of his First Amendment defense, but he could bring that issue before us in the future. We also do not opine on whether executive or other privileges might shield certain evidence from discovery or use as the litigation proceeds. Nor does our decision on a President's official-act immunity from damages liability in a civil suit treat with whether or when a President might be immune from criminal prosecution.
Instead, we hold only that, taking the allegations in the plaintiffs' complaints as true as we must at this point in the proceedings, President Trump has not demonstrated an entitlement to dismissal of the claims against him based on a President's official-act immunity. In the proceedings ahead in the district court, President Trump will have the opportunity to show that his alleged actions in the runup to and on January 6 were taken in his official capacity as President rather than in his unofficial capacity as presidential candidate.
Because this appeal comes to us on the denial in relevant part of motions to dismiss, we "assume the truth of the factual allegations" in the complaints. Clinton, 520 U.S. at 685. We also draw from the complaints in all three cases consolidated before us. And because the sole question we consider is whether President Trump has shown that he should have been...
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