Protesters forced Trump to testify under oath — a feat Mueller and

The rule of law has taken a beating in America over the past few years, and continued this week with former President TrumpDonald TrumpTrump announces new social media network called ‘TRUTH Social’ Virginia State Police investigating death threat against McAuliffe Meadows hires former deputy AG to represent him in Jan. 6 probe: report MORE’s ongoing repetition of his big lie that he won the 2020 election and former Trump aide Steve BannonStephen (Steve) Kevin BannonMeadows hires former deputy AG to represent him in Jan. 6 probe: report House GOP leaders urge ‘no’ vote on Bannon contempt Trump calls Liz Cheney a ‘smug fool’ MORE’s defiance of a valid subpoena from the United States Congress. But in the midst of this flogging, an amazing thing happened on Monday: Trump sat for four hours and answered questions in a deposition taken under oath and under the pain and penalty of perjury. 

Take that in for a moment: Trump — who dodged two impeachments and multiple civil and criminal investigations involving his conduct as president and before — failed to outmaneuver the legal system of accountability in a routine civil action for money damages. 

The lawsuit was filed in November of 2015 against a number of defendants, including Trump, the Trump Organization and his 2016 campaign for president, by “a group of human rights activists of Mexican origin” who allege that they “were violently attacked by defendant Donald J. Trump’s security guards … and their property destroyed for the express purpose of interfering with their political speech while they were lawfully and peacefully assembled on a public sidewalk” in front of Trump Tower in New York City. 

The protests came in the wake of Trump’s infamous press conference on June 16, 2015, in which he announced his candidacy for president and claimed that Mexico and other countries in “South and Latin America” were “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

According to the lawsuit, on the first two days of the protest, July 3 and Aug. 9, 2015, a security guard for the Trump Organization told the protesters “that the sidewalk running along Fifth Avenue was private property” so they must leave. Both times, an officer from the New York City Policy Department informed the Trump employees that the group could legally continue to protest on the sidewalk.

Then, during a third protest on Sept. 3, 2015, the plaintiffs allege that Trump’s security team “used both hands to violently shove” a plaintiff, “propelling him several feet southward on the public sidewalk,” and “forcefully grabbed” another “by the wrist and thrust her down a sidewalk.” The group of protesters was wearing Ku Klux Klan suits during the incident, and further allege that Trump’s team confiscated or destroyed their cardboard signs, which included the slogan “Trump: Make America Racist Again.”

The plaintiffs brought a series of civil claims, a number of which have been…