Protesters Should Sue President Trump.
When Donald Trump was being sworn in as President on January 20, 2017, there was a crowd of protesters about a mile away who were attacked by the Washington D.C. police, who sprayed them with tear gas. Those protesters who were gassed should sue the Washington D.C. police department and they should also name Donald Trump as a defendant in their lawsuit. Trump should be named as a defendant because he was partly responsible for the gassing. Before Trump was elected President, he endorsed torture. Trump was talking to a journalist, and the journalist asked Trump what he thought of torture. The journalist was referring to the torture (waterboarding) of prisoners who were being held in Guantanamo. Trump gleefully shouted 'Torture works!'. I think that's the most obvious and blatant endorsement of torture that I have ever heard. Since Trump endorsed torture, Trump should be named as a defendant in every case of police brutality that occurs in this country while he is in office.
Let's compare Trump to Hitler, the German dictator who led Germany from 1933 until 1945. Hitler may have endorsed the torture of Jews, and that would encourage police officers all over Germany to engage in acts of brutality. Hitler's position as leader of the German state would make his pro-torture position seen legitimate. If any police officer in Germany was guilty of torturing someone, Hitler would also be partly responsible, because Hitler encouraged them to do it. If a Jew in Germany was permitted to file a lawsuit against the police officers who beat him, he could also name Hitler as a defendant in the suit, because Hitler had encouraged torture, it would be a perfectly legitimate lawsuit. The same legal principle is in effect here. If any person in the U.S.A. is beaten or tortured by the police, they can name Trump as a defendant because he endorsed torture. Trump's leadership position as President makes his endorsement of torture makes torture appear to be a legitimate tactic, in the minds of police officers all over the country, and Trump should pay the consequences in each and every lawsuit that is filed for police brutality while he is in office.
When Bill Clinton was President, he was sued by a woman named Paula Jones. During the trial, Clinton argued that the case should be thrown out of court, because dealing with the case would have interfered with his official duties as President. He contended that he could not be sued, simply because he was President. The judge in the case had to rule on this issue before the case could proceed. The judge ruled in favor of Paula Jones, saying that the President was only an elected official, he was not above the law, and he did not enjoy any special immunity from lawsuits. After this ruling, the case could proceed. This ruling in the Paula Jones vs. William Clinton case set a precedent, the precedent shows that the President of the U.S.A. can be sued. Therefore, if Clinton can be sued, Trump can also be sued.
The protesters who were attacked by the police in Washington on January 20 should sue the District of Columbia police and they should also name Donald Trump as a defendant in the suit. In the suit they should say that being sprayed with tear gas amounts to a form of torture. The police may argue that they had to do something to disperse the crowd. Well, if that's true, they could have sprayed the crowd with water. The fire department could have provided the police with fire hoses, so they could have doused the unruly crowd with a spray of harmless water. The police and fire departments had ample time to prepare for this, since they knew several months in advance that the inauguration was coming. They chose tear gas, which is a toxic chemical, instead of water, which is harmless, because they wanted to comply with Trump's endorsement of torture, and get in line with Trump's fascist crusade.
