That doesn't mean what you think it means.
“I’m also going to indemnify all police officers and law enforcement officials throughout the United States from being destroyed by the radical left for taking strong action on crime,” Trump said Tuesday at a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa. “These are people, they want to destroy them because they want to put criminals away.”
“They’re the greatest people, the police,” Trump added. “They’re under threat of losing their pension, their house and their family and losing everything.”
Indemnification, in legal terms, refers to when an individual’s legal damages and typically their legal defense are paid for by another entity. Legal experts say the vast majority of police officers are already virtually indemnified by the cities and counties they represent, noting that any additional changes would likely need to first go through Congress.
“At the highest level, Trump is simply wrong to suggest that police anywhere in the United States are losing their pensions, homes or families because of civil rights litigation,” said Patrick Jaicomo, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit civil rights law firm. “Police are already indemnified from liability and provided free legal representation in almost all lawsuits brought against them — setting aside the fact that they are also shielded by the court-created doctrine of qualified immunity.”
Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, police are protected unless courts find they committed a “clearly established” constitutional violation.