10 democrat members of congress are suing Trump for civil damages related to J6.

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Donald Trump isn’t off the hook for Jan. 6 just yet.

Though the criminal cases against him are all but dead, Trump is likely to be fighting eight civil lawsuits — from members of Congress and injured police officers — deep into his second term. They may be the last form of legal redress Trump faces for his role in spurring the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Those lawsuits have been steadily advancing for years, largely overshadowed by the explosive Jan. 6 committee and grand jury investigations. But now that the criminal cases have imploded, they’ve become a last stand of sorts for those seeking to hold Trump accountable for the chaos his supporters wrought that day.

“These cases, unlike the criminal case, will not be affected by the election,” said Joseph Sellers, a lawyer representing 10 current and former Democratic House members suing Trump and members of two far-right groups involved in the riot, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. “Our clients suffered real injuries that entitle them to relief, but also I think are seeking some measure of accountability given President Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 events and the events leading up to it.”

Trump’s election effectively scuttled special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump, but a unanimous Supreme Court ruling from more than two decades ago says civil litigation can proceed against a sitting president. The high court ruled that those cases don’t need to end because of the potential to distract the chief executive.

And a complicated appeals court ruling in 2023 allowed the Jan. 6 lawsuits to move forward despite Trump’s claims of presidential immunity — a decision that helped form the basis of the Supreme Court’s subsequent ruling on Trump’s immunity from criminal proceedings. Trump is still waiting for a ruling on whether he’s immune from the lawsuits because he was acting as president as he riled up the crowd at the ellipse that day, as he’s argued. If he’s held liable for inciting the violence at the Capitol, Trump could be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.

“This is something that should be brought to trial during the second administration of President Trump,” Sellers added. “We’re not suggesting that the president be treated like any other defendant, but that should not stop the cases from proceeding to trial.”

On Friday, the attorneys in the case met for a brief update, and Trump’s lawyer Jonathan Shaw said he anticipated additional delays in the case because the president-elect’s lead attorney, David Warrington, had just been named White House counsel.

The Jan. 6-related suits are only a portion of Trump’s legal hangover. Also looming are massive civil judgments rendered against him over the past year: $450 million he owes to New York state over what a judge concluded was pervasive fraud in his business empire there and about $97 million he owes to New York writer E. Jean Carroll in suits she brought relating to her claim that he raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s. (Trump is appealing all those cases.)

Trump is also a defendant in other long-running lawsuits, including one seeking to hold him accountable for unleashing federal law enforcement agents on Black Lives Matter protesters and another claiming he defamed the wrongly accused “Central Park 5” during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris in September.

Adding to the unwieldy heap of litigation are a slew of suits Trump himself has filed in recent years, accusing media organizations, his political opponents and others of spreading defamatory stories about him or otherwise treating him unfairly.

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