Former President Donald Trump’s legal team arrived in Colorado on Monday for the five-day trial that will decide his eligibility to be on the state ballot.
“They’re trying to put up their ‘steal’ curtain around Colorado,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser with the Trump campaign, said ahead of the trial’s start. “And when I say ‘steal’ curtain, that’s S-T-E-A-L. Democrats are trying to steal this race.”
According to the Denver Post, both Donald Trump’s legal team and the plaintiffs in the case have characterized the trial as a battle for Democracy “whether by allowing Trump to run again for the country’s highest office or, in the defense’s view, by endorsing a political charade that would rob many voters of their favored candidate”:
A group of Colorado Republican and unaffiliated voters, backed by the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed the challenge in Denver District Court. Their lawsuit seeks, based on Trump’s alleged role on Jan. 6, to keep him off the ballot under a provision of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that bars people who engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding office.
Plaintiffs called several witnesses from January 6, including police officers, who testified to some of the violence they experienced at the hands of the rioters that day.
“(Protestors) told us we were on the wrong side of history when we were defending the United States Capitol and the peaceful transfer of power,” said Officer Daniel Hodges of the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department.
Supporters of President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Trump’s legal team noted that the president repeatedly called for peace that day and that he did not lead the rioters into the Capitol that day. On the charges of insurrection, Scott Gessler, a former Colorado secretary of state on team Trump, cited Eugene v. Debs, a socialist politician who still ran for president despite being imprisoned for sedition by discouraging military recruitment during World War I.
“When there are many definitions (of insurrection), that really means there are none,” Gessler said. “… Frankly, they’re making up the standards so it fits the facts of Jan. 6.”
When the plaintiffs sought to introduce the House Jan. 6 committee’s final report as evidence, Gessler called it a “poisoned” political document that should have no basis in an actual court of law.
As Breitbart News reported, “a federal court in New Hampshire dismissed a similar case recently, ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment claim is a ‘nonjusticiable political question.'”
“Trump has not been convicted of insurrection and was acquitted by the U.S. Senate of charges of engaging in insurrection,” it added. He continues to deny wrongdoing. The Colorado case could likely land before the Supreme Court, which has never before ruled on the Civil War-era amendment.”
Paul Roland Bois joined Breitbart News in 2021. He also directed the award-winning feature film, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed for FREE on YouTube or Tubi. A high-quality, ad-free stream can also be purchased on Google Play or Vimeo on Demand. Follow him on Twitter @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.
