Oath Keepers Ask Judge to Dismiss Democrat’s Capitol Riot Suit

(Bloomberg) -- The far-right Oath Keepers asked a judge in Washington to throw out a lawsuit by members of Congress accusing the group of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

In a court filing on Wednesday, a lawyer for the militia group argued that the suit filed in February by Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, failed to show that the riot was the result of coordinated activity by militia members. The complaint “lack[s] any allegation that Oath Keepers (as an entity that may sue and be sued), directed or controlled anyone to do anything at any time,” the filing said.

Thompson’s lawsuit, which was later joined by 10 other House Democrats, argued that the Oath Keepers conspired to storm the Capitol with former President Donald Trump, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the far-right Proud Boys. It’s one of several civil suits filed in Washington by police officers and members of Congress who were at the Capitol when the building was stormed.

The Oath Keepers are a loose militia organization largely comprised of veterans and former law-enforcement officials. Since the riot at the Capitol, the group has become one of the primary targets of the Justice Department’s sweeping investigation of the violence at the Capitol. The largest criminal case to emerge from the probe centers on a group of Oath Keepers who allegedly conspired to storm the Capitol, training in the weeks beforehand and communicating throughout the siege.

In its filing on Wednesday, the Oath Keepers argued that Thompson’s claims about the group are “based on new reports and other third and fourth hand accounts of what went on.”

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