By Pete Williams
NBC News
January 11, 2022
Lawyers for former President Donald Trump urged a federal judge Monday to dismiss lawsuits accusing him of conspiring with two far-right extremist groups and others to block the presidential vote count.
U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta questioned lawyers for both sides, but his most probing comments were directed at members of the Trump legal team, and the judge showed no sign that he was prepared to immediately dismiss the suits.
The first lawsuit over the Capitol riot to name the former president, filed 11 months ago by House Democrats, said the attempted insurrection was “the intended and foreseeable culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the legal process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the Electoral College.”