A week-long trial to challenge former President Donald Trump’s constitutional eligibility to run for office began Monday in a Denver courtroom, with a Jan. 6, 2021, incident when a pro-Trump mob stormed the U. S. Capitol and disrupted the certification of election results.
Six Colorado electors alleged in a lawsuit that Trump’s role in “invoking” and “inciting” that mob made him ineligible for a job under Article 3 of the 14th Amendment. The Civil War-era clause prohibits anyone who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. and then “participate in the insurrection” from their workplace in the United States.
In an opening statement, lawyers for the plaintiffs, along with representatives of the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said their four-point argument was simple: Trump took an oath on the Constitution; The January 6 attack was an insurrection; Trump has participated in this insurrection; and Colorado election officials can and deserve to exclude ineligible applicants from the ballot.
Trump’s lawyers did little to challenge the first and fourth issues of that argument on Monday, but objected to characterizing the attack on the Capitol as an “insurrection” and the claim that Trump “participated” in such an insurrection. Outside the courtroom, a spokesperson for Trump’s presidential crusade for 2024 called the trial “election interference” through “outlandish far-left groups. “
The six plaintiffs in the lawsuit include former Rhode Island Republican Rep. Claudine Schneider, who now lives in Colorado; former Republican state lawmaker Norma Anderson, who is no longer affiliated; and Republican commentator Krista Kafer.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys called as witnesses a congressman and two police officers who were attacked in the crowd when they stormed the Capitol. They showed the court detailed and graphic video footage of the attack and Trump’s comments in a speech the previous day near the White House, in a presentation that echoed the content of the allegations made in a report released last year through a U. S. House committee. The committee met to investigate the attack.
“This is a Trump-led insurrection,” said Eric Olson, an attorney for the plaintiffs and a former attorney general of Colorado. “He fired up the crowd, told them to go to the Capitol and fired them up with his tweets. “
But Trump’s lawyer, Scott Gessler, a former Colorado secretary of state, criticized the fact that the complaint is largely based on the Jan. 6 congressional committee’s findings, which he called the product of a process.
“They are asking the court to approve this unilateral report,” Gessler said. “This report is first and foremost a political document. But this is a courtroom.
The Jan. 6 committee, made up of nine members of the House of Representatives, included two Republicans, former Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming. GOP opposition in the U. S. Senate prevented the formation of a broader joint committee to investigate the attacks, and House Republicans boycotted the committee after Democrats refused to appoint members who had voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election.
Gessler himself spread baseless conspiracy theories alleging widespread fraud in the 2020 election. In an unsuccessful bid for the presidency of the Colorado Republican Party in 2021, he claimed that there is “a very high probability that Trump stole the election in Nevada from him” and that there were “enormous disruptions across the country” with election integrity. Claims that the effects of the 2020 election were fraudulent have been continually refuted by election officials, experts, media investigations, law enforcement authorities, and courts.
Ahead of the trial, Trump’s legal team filed a motion Saturday asking the state court to rule on the handling of the case, Judge Sarah B. Wallace abstains from the process.
Wallace testified at the start of Monday’s hearing that in October 2022, he donated $100 through the liberal-leaning online fundraising platform ActBlue, to the Colorado Turnout Project, a small PAC formed in 2021 to oppose Republican applicants who “refused to convict. “political extremists” implicated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, with a specific theme about the defeat of Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Silt.
Jason Miller, a longtime Trump adviser, told reporters Monday that Wallace’s donation to a “left-wing group” undermined his ability to conduct a fair trial.
“This is election interference,” Miller said shortly before the trial began. “The Democrats, Joe Biden and CREW, know exactly what they’re doing. “
Wallace was appointed by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis to her seat on the Second Judicial District Court in August 2022 and took office in January of this year. She denied the motion for recusal, saying she did not recall the express donation to the Colorado Turnout Project. and that it had “always been my practice” to make political contributions to individual candidates, rather than PACs.
“I have no opinion on whether the events of Jan. 6 constituted aggression or whether President Trump engaged in an offensive,” Wallace said. “If I did, I would recuse myself. But since I don’t, I reject the request. “
The firsthand testimony phase of the trial began Monday with several eyewitnesses to the events of Jan. 6, including Daniel Hodges, an officer with the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.
Hodges is the officer seen in a widely shared video screaming in pain as he crashed into a door through the advancing pro-Trump mob. He testified that, while parked on Constitution Avenue near the Capitol in the hours leading up to the attack, large numbers of people were seen making their way toward the construction of the White House Ellipse, where the president had continually suggested to his supporters that they “fight” to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
During cross-examination by Trump’s lawyers, Hodges stated that he may not say for sure whether an individual member of the mob that attacked the Capitol was providing Trump’s speech.
Swalwell rarely choked while recounting his reports in the House about the attack. He described being alerted to a fuel mask stored under lawmakers’ desks, hearing a chaplain’s prayer, and texting his wife when he began to worry about her protection from him and his colleagues. They were evacuated from the room.
“We may just hear the banging on the doors and the screams of the rioters outside,” Swalwell said. “It’s unsettling. “
Later Monday, lawyers for the plaintiffs presented a series of evidence related to the attack, adding videos, photographs and the Jan. 6 committee’s conclusions. Wallace accepted the evidence despite repeated objections from Gessler, who said the videos posted during Jan. 1. 6 commissions were “highly produced”.
“It’s a smart film production,” he said. But that must be admitted as evidence. “
In the plaintiffs’ claim that Trump participated in an insurrection, attorney Sean Grimsley also submitted excerpts from the former president’s speeches and dozens of social media posts in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6. The evidence included more than 10 minutes of footage from Trump’s speech at the Ellipse.
But Wallace supported an objection by Trump’s lawyers to the admission of video clips showing close Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman addressing a pro-Trump crowd at the Ellipse shortly before the attack on the Capitol. In his speeches, Giuliani, a former New Yorker mayor and Republican presidential candidate, advocated “trial through combat,” while Eastman, a law professor and former visiting professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, reiterated a discredited legal theory that Vice President Mike Pence had unilateral authority to block the voter certification procedure. who took up his position that day at the Capitol.
“‘It’s incredibly vital context for understanding what President Trump is saying,'” Grimsley said.
“There’s a lot of evidence that President Trump told other people that Vice President Pence had the ability to do something,” Wallace said in rejecting that evidence.
Trump announced his 2024 crusade shortly after the 2022 midterm elections and maintained a strong lead in the polls over a giant organization of No. 1 Republican candidates.
His campaign filed an application to participate in Colorado’s number one election with Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office on Oct. 11. Griswold is an outspoken critic of Trump who said the former president “incited and attacked our democracy,” but has yet to take a transparent stance on questioning the 14th Amendment.
“In light of the allegations made in those proceedings, the secretary intends to stay Mr. Trump’s request pending further court decisions,” Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, wrote in a notice to Wallace the same day.
Grant Sullivan, an attorney who rebuked Griswold, said in a brief opening Monday that the secretary of state has no intention of presenting evidence at trial, even though a deputy director of the state’s elections department is called as a witness through the plaintiffs.
Sullivan said that while the main points of the complaint against Trump’s candidacy are “extraordinary,” the case is “in many tactics a very typical procedure under the Colorado Election Code. “He pointed to three similar candidate eligibility requirements situations presented in Denver. District Court in recent years, in which the secretary of state named as the defendant has yet to present evidence to support either party.
“The secretary believes Donald Trump has a significant duty in the attack on the Capitol on January 6th,” Sullivan said. “But he welcomes the court’s guidance on whether his moves are successful to the point of disqualifying him for the number one presidency. “In Colorado. “
Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of grant-backed news bureaus and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains its editorial independence. If you have any questions, please contact Editor-in-Chief Quentin Young: [email protected]. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.
by Chase Woodruff, New Jersey Monitor October 31, 2023
A week-long trial to challenge former President Donald Trump’s constitutional eligibility to run for office began Monday in a Denver courtroom, with a Jan. 6, 2021, incident when a pro-Trump mob stormed the U. S. Capitol and disrupted the certification of election results.
Six Colorado electors alleged in a lawsuit that Trump’s role in “invoking” and “inciting” that mob made him ineligible for a job under Article 3 of the 14th Amendment. The Civil War-era clause prohibits anyone who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. and then “participate in the insurrection” from their workplace in the United States.
In an opening statement, lawyers for the plaintiffs, along with representatives of the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said their four-point argument was simple: Trump took an oath on the Constitution; The January 6 attack was an insurrection; Trump has participated in this insurrection; and Colorado election officials can and deserve to exclude ineligible applicants from the ballot.
Trump’s lawyers did little to challenge the first and fourth issues of that argument on Monday, but objected to characterizing the attack on the Capitol as an “insurrection” and the claim that Trump “participated” in such an insurrection. Outside the courtroom, a spokesperson for Trump’s presidential crusade for 2024 called the trial “election interference” through “outlandish far-left groups. “
The six plaintiffs in the lawsuit include former Rhode Island Republican Rep. Claudine Schneider, who now lives in Colorado; former Republican state lawmaker Norma Anderson, who is no longer affiliated; and Republican commentator Krista Kafer.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys called as witnesses a congressman and two police officers who were attacked in the crowd when they stormed the Capitol. They showed the court detailed and graphic video footage of the attack and Trump’s comments in a speech the previous day near the White House, in a presentation that echoed the content of the allegations made in a report released last year through a U. S. House committee. The committee met to investigate the attack.
“This is a Trump-led insurrection,” said Eric Olson, an attorney for the plaintiffs and a former attorney general of Colorado. “He fired up the crowd, told them to go to the Capitol and fired them up with his tweets. “
But Trump’s lawyer, Scott Gessler, a former Colorado secretary of state, criticized the fact that the complaint is largely based on the Jan. 6 congressional committee’s findings, which he called the product of a process.
“They are asking the court to approve this unilateral report,” Gessler said. “This report is first and foremost a political document. But this is a courtroom.
The Jan. 6 committee, made up of nine members of the House of Representatives, included two Republicans, former Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming. GOP opposition in the U. S. Senate prevented the formation of a broader joint committee to investigate the attacks, and House Republicans boycotted the committee after Democrats refused to appoint members who had voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election.
Gessler himself spread baseless conspiracy theories alleging widespread fraud in the 2020 election. In his failed bid for president of the Colorado Republican Party in 2021, he claimed that there was “a very high probability that Trump would steal the election from him in Nevada” and that there were “enormous disruptions across the country” with election integrity. Claims that the effects of the 2020 election were fraudulent have been continually refuted by election officials, experts, media investigations, law enforcement authorities, and courts.
Ahead of the trial, Trump’s legal team filed a motion Saturday asking the state court to rule on the handling of the case, Judge Sarah B. Wallace abstains from the process.
Wallace testified at the start of Monday’s hearing that in October 2022, he donated $100 through the liberal-leaning online fundraising platform ActBlue, to the Colorado Turnout Project, a small PAC formed in 2021 to oppose Republican applicants who “refused to convict. “political extremists” implicated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, with a specific theme about the defeat of Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Silt.
Jason Miller, a longtime Trump adviser, told reporters Monday that Wallace’s donation to a “left-wing group” jeopardized his ability to conduct a fair trial.
“This is election interference,” Miller said shortly before the trial began. “The Democrats, Joe Biden and CREW, know exactly what they’re doing. “
Wallace was appointed by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis to her seat on the Second Judicial District Court in August 2022 and took office in January of this year. She denied the motion for recusal, saying she did not recall the express donation to the Colorado Turnout Project. and that it had “always been my practice” to make political contributions to individual candidates, rather than PACs.
“I have no opinion on whether the events of Jan. 6 constituted aggression or whether President Trump engaged in an offensive,” Wallace said. “If I did, I would recuse myself. But since I don’t, I reject the request. “
The firsthand testimony phase of the trial began Monday with several eyewitnesses to the events of Jan. 6, including Daniel Hodges, an officer with the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.
Hodges is the officer seen in a widely shared video screaming in pain as he crashed into a door through the advancing pro-Trump mob. He testified that, while parked on Constitution Avenue near the Capitol in the hours leading up to the attack, large numbers of people were seen making their way toward the construction of the White House Ellipse, where the president had continually suggested to his supporters that they “fight” to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
During cross-examination by Trump’s lawyers, Hodges stated that he may not say for sure whether an individual member of the mob that attacked the Capitol was providing Trump’s speech.
Swalwell rarely choked while recounting his reports in the House about the attack. He described being alerted to a fuel mask stored under lawmakers’ desks, hearing a chaplain’s prayer, and texting his wife when he began to worry about her protection from him and his colleagues. They were evacuated from the room.
“We may just hear the banging on the doors and the screams of the rioters outside,” Swalwell said. “It’s unsettling. “
Later Monday, lawyers for the plaintiffs presented a series of evidence related to the attack, adding videos, photographs and the Jan. 6 committee’s conclusions. Wallace accepted the evidence despite repeated objections from Gessler, who said the videos posted during Jan. 1. 6 commissions were “highly produced”.
“It’s a smart film production,” he said. But that must be admitted as evidence. “
In the plaintiffs’ claim that Trump participated in an insurrection, attorney Sean Grimsley also submitted excerpts from the former president’s speeches and dozens of social media posts in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6. The evidence included more than 10 minutes of footage from Trump’s speech at the Ellipse.
But Wallace supported an objection by Trump’s lawyers to the admission of video clips showing close Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman addressing a pro-Trump crowd at the Ellipse shortly before the attack on the Capitol. In his speeches, Giuliani, a former New Yorker mayor and Republican presidential candidate, advocated “trial through combat,” while Eastman, a law professor and former visiting professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, reiterated a discredited legal theory that Vice President Mike Pence had unilateral authority to block the voter certification procedure. who took up his position that day at the Capitol.
“‘It’s incredibly vital context for understanding what President Trump is saying,'” Grimsley said.
“There’s a lot of evidence that President Trump told other people that Vice President Pence had the ability to do something,” Wallace said in rejecting that evidence.
Trump announced his 2024 crusade shortly after the 2022 midterm elections and maintained a strong lead in the polls over a giant organization of No. 1 Republican candidates.
His campaign filed an application to participate in Colorado’s number one election with Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office on Oct. 11. Griswold is an outspoken critic of Trump who said the former president “incited and attacked our democracy,” but has yet to take a transparent stance in questioning the 14th Amendment.
“In light of the allegations made in those proceedings, the secretary intends to stay Mr. Trump’s request pending further court decisions,” Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, wrote in a notice to Wallace the same day.
Grant Sullivan, an attorney who rebuked Griswold, said in a brief opening Monday that the secretary of state has no intention of presenting evidence at trial, even though a deputy director of the state’s election department is being called as a witness through the plaintiffs.
Sullivan said that while the main points of the complaint against Trump’s candidacy are “extraordinary,” the case is “in many tactics a very typical procedure under the Colorado Election Code. “He pointed to three similar candidate eligibility requirements situations presented in Denver. District Court in recent years, in which the secretary of state named as the defendant has yet to present evidence to support either party.
“The secretary believes Donald Trump has a significant duty in the attack on the Capitol on January 6th,” Sullivan said. “But he welcomes the court’s guidance on whether his moves are successful to the point of disqualifying him for the number one presidency. “In Colorado. “
Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of grant-backed news bureaus and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains its editorial independence. Please contact Editor Quentin Young if you have any questions: info@coloradonewsline. com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.
New Jersey Monitor is owned by States Newsroom, a network of grant-backed news bureaus and a coalition of donors as a 501c public charity(3). New Jersey Monitor maintains its editorial independence. Please contact editor Terrence McDonald if you have any questions: info@newjerseymonitor. com. Follow the New Jersey Monitor on Facebook and Twitter.
Chase Woodruff is a senior reporter for Colorado Newsline. His topics include the environment, money in politics, and the economy.
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