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Amit Priyavadan Mehta (born 1971) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as a United States district judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He was appointed in 2014 by President Barack Obama. In 2021, Mehta became a judge on the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Mehta presided over cases related to attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the Google antitrust case. In 2022, he rejected efforts by Donald Trump to dismiss lawsuits accusing the former President of legal responsibility in the attacks.
Mehta graduated from Georgetown University in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. From 1993 to 1994, Mehta worked as a paralegal at the law firm Patton Boggs (now Squire Patton Boggs). He then attended the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was an editor of the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law. He graduated in 1997 with a Juris Doctor and Order of the Coif honors.
From 2007 to 2014, he rejoined Zuckerman Spaeder, serving as partner from 2010 to 2014. He represented clients in civil and criminal matters before state and federal courts. Official Biography at Zuckerman Spaeder While in the private sector, he represented former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
On December 16, 2014, Reid withdrew his cloture motion on Mehta's nomination, and the Senate proceeded to vote to confirm Mehta in a voice vote. He received his federal judicial commission on December 19, 2014.
In July 2019, Mehta sided with the pharmaceutical firms Merck & Co., Eli Lilly and Company, and Amgen Inc. by blocking a Trump administration rule requiring drugmakers to put prices in television ads, a central part of the president's push to lower the cost of prescription medications. The goal of the rule was to increase transparency; Mehta ruled that requiring big pharmaceutical companies to disclose prices to consumers in television advertisements was something that could be done only by the Department of Health and Human Services if mandated by Congress.
In 2020, Mehta became the presiding judge in the United States v. Google LLC antitrust case. On June 1, 2021, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Mehta to the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
On February 18, 2022, Mehta issued a lengthy opinion that rejected Trump's claim of "absolute Legal immunity" from lawsuits, finding that his actions were not part of his presidential duties, and that there was plausible evidence to suggest he engaged in a conspiracy with organized groups to use any means, including violence, to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The opinion allows the case to proceed, with the plaintiffs demanding documents, depositions, and other evidence from Trump and members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. Mehta dropped several other co-defendants from the suit, including Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr., and Representative Mo Brooks.
On January 25, 2024, Mehta sentenced former Trump adviser, Peter Navarro, to four months in jail for contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena related to the congressional investigation into the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.
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