FORMER US PRESIDENT Donald Trump can be sued by injured Capitol Police officers and Democratic lawmakers over the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, the justice department said today.

The department said that although a president enjoys broad legal latitude to communicate to the public on matters of concern, “no part of a president’s official responsibilities includes the incitement of imminent private violence.

“By definition, such conduct plainly falls outside the president’s constitutional and statutory duties”.

The brief was filed by lawyers in the justice department’s civil division and has no bearing on a separate criminal investigation by a department special counsel into whether Trump can be criminally charged over efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election ahead of the Capitol riot.

In fact, the lawyers note that they are not taking a position with respect to potential criminal liability for Trump or anyone else.

A federal judge in Washington last year rejected efforts by Trump to throw out the conspiracy lawsuits filed by lawmakers and two Capitol police officers, saying in his ruling that the former president’s words “plausibly” led to the riot.

US district court Judge Amit Mehta said in his ruling that Trump’s words during a rally before the violent storming of the US Capitol were likely “words of incitement not protected by the first amendment”.

The lawsuits, filed by Democrat representative Eric Swalwell, officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby, and later joined by other House Democrats, said that Trump and others made “false and incendiary allegations of fraud and theft, and in direct response to the defendant’s express calls for violence at the rally, a violent mob attacked the US Capitol”.

138 police officers were injured responding to the riot.

Brian Sicknick, a 42-year-old responding Capitol Police officer, was pepper-sprayed during the riot and had two thromboembolic strokes the next day and died.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the D.C. chief medical examiner found he died from a stroke, classifying his death as natural, and commenting that “all that transpired played a role in his condition”.

With additional reporting by Jamie McCarron