A group of then-President Trump supporters in cars and pickup trucks who surrounded a Biden-Harris campaign bus on a busy Texas interstate days before the 2020 presidential election are being sued for political intimidation in a federal civil case that kicked off Monday.
The group of vehicles – a self-labeled “Trump Train” of vehicles adorned with large Trump flags – participated in an orchestrated effort aimed at intimidating the people on the bus and forced the campaign to cancel its remaining events in Texas, the plaintiffs argued in their complaint filed in June 2021. The defendants say they were merely supporting Trump “in a very loud way,” an attorney said.
The plaintiffs in the case – including former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis – say the group attempted to run the bus off the road along Interstate 35 and in one incident captured on video, a “Trump Train” pickup truck and a Biden campaign SUV collided while trailing the bus, although nobody was hurt.
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Former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis waves to supporters after making her concession speech, Nov. 4, 2014, in Fort Worth. Davis is part of a group of plaintiffs suing members of a “Trump Train” that surrounded a Biden-Harris campaign bus in 2020. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
“It was a day that was very different from anything I experienced campaigning,” said Davis, who testified Monday that she felt riddled with fear and anxiety.
“It honestly felt like being taken hostage in a way,” Davis said, according to the New York Times.
Video from the Oct. 30, 2020, incident shows a group of cars and pickup trucks flying Trump 2020 flags driving alongside the Biden campaign bus on a highway and boxing the bus in at some points.
A 42-minute video Davis shot that day was shown in court Monday.
“What would happen if the shoe was on the other foot?” she was heard saying in the clip. “We’d all be arrested and probably thrown up against the side of a car.”
Samuel Hall, in his opening statement representing the plaintiffs, said they were chased and surrounded by the cohort of Trump supporters.
A Trump supporter in a pickup truck tails a Biden-Harris campaign bus in 2020. (John Hinojosa via Storyful)
“They were literally driven out of town,” Hall said. “It wasn’t peaceful patriotism. It doesn’t have a place in Texas. It doesn’t have a place in America. And it has consequences.”
The defense argued that the drivers did not conspire against the Biden-Harris campaign bus that day and instead joined the train as if it were a pep rally. They also claimed that the bus had several opportunities to exit the highway on its way from San Antonio to Austin.
“It was a rah-rah group that sought to support and advocate for a candidate of their choice in a very loud way,” attorney Francisco Canseco said.
Before the trial, Canseco said his clients acted lawfully, exercising their free speech rights, not infringing on the rights of people on the bus.
“It’s more of a constitutional issue,” Canseco said. “It’s more of who has the greater right to speak behind their candidate.”
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The plaintiffs – who also include the bus driver, a campaign volunteer and a staffer – say those Trump supporters are responsible for assault and political intimidation tactics, violating state law and the federal Enforcement Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. The law aims to stop political violence and intimidation tactics and was enacted by Congress during the Reconstruction Era to protect the rights of Black men to vote by prohibiting political violence.
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The plaintiffs argue that some of those in the caravan appeared to believe that Kamala Harris, then a candidate for vice president, might be aboard, though she was not.
“Dozens of individuals in at least forty vehicles bearing flags exalting then-president and presidential candidate Donald J. Trump formed a self-labeled vehicular ‘Trump Train’ on Texas’s main highway with the express purpose of terrorizing and intimidating a group based on that group’s political viewpoints, including their support for a different presidential campaign,” the lawsuit states.
“The goal of this effort was to intimidate supporters of then-Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates Joseph R. Biden and Kamala Harris, and to stop those supporters from speaking and acting freely in support of the candidate of their choice in Texas.”
The plaintiffs argue that some of those in the caravan appeared to believe that Kamala Harris, then a candidate for vice president, might be aboard, though she was not. Harris pictured in 2020 on the campaign trail. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The defendants in the case – a half-dozen of the participants – requested the case be dismissed before trial, arguing that the law did not apply to their case. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, an Obama appointee, denied that motion.
“While the First Amendment protects forms of political advocacy, the facts of this case go well beyond protected expressive conduct,” Pitman wrote in his order last month. “A jury could reasonably find that defendants unlawfully conspired and drove in a dangerous manner such that they threatened or assaulted plaintiffs.”
The defendants have denied driving recklessly and argue that a campaign staff member in the white SUV initiated the collision along the highway. Video leading up to the collision shows the SUV repeatedly driving in between lanes.
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The collision, and the alleged aggressive behavior from the convoy, occurred when the bus passed through San Marcos, about 30 miles southwest of Austin, when a police escort had dropped off.
The plaintiffs say they called 911 for police help and, in a prior lawsuit by the plaintiffs, they alleged the San Marcos Police Department violated the Ku Klux Klan Act by failing to send a police escort after multiple 911 calls were made and a bus rider said his life was threatened.
The suit accused officers of privately laughing and joking about the emergency calls. San Marcos settled the lawsuit in 2023 for $175,000 and a requirement that law enforcement get training on responding to political violence.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
