‘Trump Train’ organizer challenges $40,000 verdict over harassment of Biden campaign bus

Eliazar Cisneros argues a federal court misinterpreted a Reconstruction-era civil rights law that creates a cause of action for conspiracies to harm people based on their "support or advocacy" for a federal political candidate.(CN) — A Trump supporter asked a Fifth Circuit panel Tuesday to overturn a $40,000 verdict he was slapped with over his role in organizing a convoy of cars known as a “Trump Train” that surrounded a Joe Biden campaign bus as it drove from San Antonio to Austin, Texas, days before the 2020 election.At issue is the interpretation of a Reconstruction-era civil rights law known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, which aims to protect voters from intimidation. The plaintiffs in the case — a Biden campaign staffer and former Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, who were on the bus to campaign for Biden, along with the driver of the bus — sued Eliazar Cisneros and other Trump Train members under a portion of the act creating a cause of action for conspiracies to harm people based on their “support or advocacy” for a federal political candidate. Although a federal jury rejected the plaintiffs’ claims against the other defendants, it found Cisneros liable under the 1871 law.Cisneros’ attorney, Quico Canseco, told the panel the law requires state action in violation of the First Amendment as well as racial or class-based animus, neither of which were present in this case. The plaintiffs, he said, “alleged only that the appellant and others opposed the Biden-Harris campaign and sought to disrupt the campaign activities.”“If the court accepts appellees’ theory,” Canseco said, the Ku Klux Klan Act “becomes a federal remedy for political confrontations whenever one side claims disruption.”“Imagine what it would do to our political system if now all of a sudden, if somebody goes up to someone wearing a Trump hat and hits them, I’m going to sue you under the KKK Act, and like that, it’s going to completely chill our electoral process that right now is in even more trouble,” he said.But attorney Erica Ross, representing the plaintiffs, rejected Canseco’s argument that the “support or advocacy” clause of the Ku Klux Klan Act requires animus against a particular class of people. She downplayed the Supreme Court case Canseco cited in support of that argument, Griffin v. Breckenridge, claiming it dealt with a separate portion of the act regarding conspiracies to deprive “any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws.”Ross also pushed back on the idea that the Trump Train’s actions constituted merely “partisan campaign tactics.”“The jury heard and saw videos and photos of this event, and I think there was more than sufficient evidence to show that it created quite a dangerous situation,” she said. “There was brake-checking. There was sort of surrounding of the bus, and ultimately [it] did cause an accident, which Mr. Cisneros then bragged about on social media in words I will not use in this court.”U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham, a Donald Trump appointee, pressed Ross on whether the provision in question creates its own “substantive right” rather than serving as a cause of action for violations of the First Amendment, which would require state action as opposed to purely private conspiracies. He asked if someone would have a claim under the Ku Klux Klan Act against people who drove onto their property and destroyed their political signs.“I think you might well have a cause of action there, your honor,” Ross responded. “And I think what’s important here is that that is not altogether shocking. I think, you know, the idea that that is kind of normal partisan back and forth, I don’t think anyone should accept.”Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod and Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Brown Clement, both George W. Bush appointees, joined Oldham on the panel. The judges took the case under submission without giving an indication on when they would rule.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads