President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is requesting that a lawsuit filed by a group of Jan. 6 rioters be dismissed or transferred to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where the Capitol riot occurred in 2021.
The named plaintiffs, Patrick Sullivan, Marie Sullivan and Alan E. Fischer III, along with other unnamed participants, filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government, accusing law enforcement on Jan. 6 of “indiscriminately launch(ing) explosive munitions into the crowd” and “shooting indiscriminately into the crowd further back” rather than targeting “people who were pushing on the fence line” in contest of the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election win, per their filing.
The lawsuit, filed in Florida in March, seeks compensation from the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries the plaintiffs say they suffered during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The plaintiffs allege they were subjected to excessive force by law enforcement without receiving the warnings required under Washington, D.C.’s First Amendment Assemblies Act. In addition to compensatory damages, they are seeking attorneys’ fees, costs and any other relief the court deems appropriate.
The filing says the plaintiffs submitted administrative claims to the appropriate federal agency, but did not receive a response within the six-month grace period.
In response, the DOJ stated that some of the FTCA complaints filed back in 2023 were invalid because some of the individuals filed incomplete claim forms, did not sign them properly, failed to include supporting documentation and are “forever barred” because of the statute of limitations established by the Federal Tort Claims Act, under which the plaintiffs are suing the U.S.
Under the FTCA, administrative claims generally have to be filed within two years of the incident, and the plaintiffs did not submit claims until July and August 2025, making them more than two years late.
“The Complaint makes it clear that the Named Plaintiffs knew that they were injured and knew who injured them, but they instead chose to wait until well past the deadline to file the claims,” the DOJ argued in their filing.
The filing continued, “The United States of America respectfully request that this Court dismiss the Complaint with prejudice or, in the alternative, transfer this case to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.”