Days before the 2020 election, on a busy Texas highway, former Democratic congresswoman Wendy Davis captured on her cellphone the scene unfolding around the Biden-Harris campaign bus: A motorcade of President Donald Trump’s supporters snaked close to the bus, causing passengers to call 911 for help.
On Monday, September 9, a jury in federal court in Austin watched a video taken by Davis, who ran for governor in 2014. It was the first day of a civil trial seeking to hold some Trump supporters accountable for what Davis and others on the bus claim was a threat of political violence. “That day was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced on the campaign trail,” Davis said, testifying that he felt fear and anxiety.
In their opening statements, lawyers for Davis and the other plaintiffs argued that six drivers of the “Trump Train” took part in a planned attack aimed at intimidating passengers on the bus and shutting down the remaining events in Texas.
The defense argued that the drivers weren’t plotting against the Biden-Harris campaign bus that day, but rather joined the bus as if it were a pep rally. They also argued that the bus pulled off the highway several times on its way from San Antonio to Austin. “This was a very vocal, enthusiastic group of people who were trying to support and defend their chosen candidate,” attorney Francisco Canseco said.
The Democratic Party felt its life was in danger.
The civil jury trial into the so-called “Trump Train” comes as President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris enter the final two months of their head-to-head battle for the White House in November.
Democrats on the bus said they feared for their lives as Trump supporters in dozens of trucks and cars nearly collided with one another, crashing into a vehicle belonging to Biden-Harris campaign staff and forcing the bus driver to swerve multiple times for safety.
Videos of the Oct. 30, 2020, crash, some of which were recorded by Trump supporters themselves and shared on social media, show a group of cars and pickup trucks, many of them flying large Trump flags, swarming the campaign bus, surrounding it, slowing it down, and preventing it from exiting the highway. “For at least 90 minutes, the defendants terrorized and intimidated the driver and passengers,” the lawsuit alleges. “The defendants came within three to four inches of the bus and played a reckless game of ‘chicken’ on the highway, attempting to run the bus off the road.”
To then-President Trump, “these patriots have done nothing wrong.”
The highway crash prompted an FBI investigation and led then-President Trump to say “these patriots have done nothing wrong.” Davis gained notoriety in 2013 when she blocked an anti-abortion bill at the state Capitol for 13 hours. The other three plaintiffs are campaign volunteers, staff and bus drivers. “We were overwhelmed by what was going on and we weren’t getting any support,” Davis testified.
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The trial ended Monday with the defense beginning cross-examination of Davis and resumes Tuesday. The trial is expected to last two to three weeks.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified monetary damages, alleges that the six defendants violated the Ku Klux Klan Act, an 1871 federal law designed to stop political violence and intimidation tactics.
The law was also used in part to prosecute Trump on federal election interference charges for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election shortly before the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Enacted by Congress during Reconstruction after the Civil War, the law was enacted to protect Black men’s voting rights by banning political violence.
Death threats
Over the previous two days, Biden-Harris supporters had received death threats and some Trump supporters had displayed weapons, according to the lawsuit. Those threats, combined with clashes on the highway, led Democrats to cancel an event planned for later that day.
Before the trial, Canseco said his clients acted lawfully, exercised their free speech and did not violate the rights of those on the bus. “This is a constitutional issue,” Canseco said. “It’s a question of who has a stronger right to support a candidate.”
The judge, Robert Pittman, an appointee of President Barack Obama, ruled last month that the KKK statute prohibits physical threats against people attending political rallies even when racial bias is not a factor, denying the defendants’ pretrial motion for summary judgment.
One of the defendants, Eliazar Cisneros, argued that his group had a First Amendment right to express his support for a candidate, but the judge wrote that “assaulting, intimidating, or threatening imminent violence against others is not a protected right of expression. Just as the First Amendment does not protect against a driver waving a political flag running a red light, it does not protect against defendants’ allegedly threatening conduct of plaintiffs with reckless driving,” Judge Pittman wrote.
The “Trump Train” was previously the subject of a lawsuit filed against the San Marcos Police Department after passengers on the bus alleged they feared for their lives when the department failed to provide a police escort despite multiple 911 calls. The suit also accused officers of secretly laughing and joking about the emergency calls. The city settled the case by paying $175,000 in 2023 and requiring police to undergo training on how to respond to political violence.
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