Judge says lawsuit accusing Trump of inciting violence at rally can proceed

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A federal judge in Kentucky ruled that a lawsuit against President Donald Trump holding him liable for inciting violence at a campaign rally can move forward.

The suit in particular refers to a March 2016 Trump campaign rally in Louisville. At the rally, Trump said from the stand concerning protesters, “get ’em out of here.” Three protesters at the rally were assaulted by Trump supporters as they were thrown out.

According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, lawyers for Trump argued that Trump’s comments were protected political speech and that they were not a directive of any kind. Rather, the argument is that the rally-goers acted of their own volition.

However, Judge David J. Hale ruled instead that the violence suffered by the protesters at the hands of the rally-goers was a “direct and proximate result” of Trump’s comments and that “it is plausible that Trump’s direction to ‘get ’em out of here’ advocated the use of force.”

In his ruling on Friday, Hale also rejected the argument that the “obvious alternative explanation” was that Trump meant for security personnel to “get ’em out of here,” not rally-goers. Additionally, Hale rejected the notion that the protesters had assumed a risk of injury by choosing the protest at the rally.