Testimony begins in lawsuit aimed at keeping Trump off Colorado's primary ballot
A trial underway in Denver District Court is drawing national attention.
Six Colorado voters -- four Republicans and two unaffiliated voters -- filed a lawsuit to prevent former President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump from being on the primary ballot in Colorado.
They say he's ineligible to run under the 14th Amendment, which says you can't hold office if you engage in an insurrection after taking an oath to uphold the Constitution.
If petitioners prevail, the case could provide a playbook for other states to keep Trump off the ballot, and maybe keep him from getting enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination.
"Trump incited a violent mob to attack our Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power under our constitution," Eric Olson, an attorney for the petitioners, said in his opening argument.
Olson says Trump used inflammatory rhetoric to deliberately goad his supporters into engaging in an insurrection and then watched for three hours as the chaos unfolded: "It was Trump's dereliction of duty in violation of his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution that caused the constitutional process to stop."
Former Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler is serving as Trump's attorney in the suit. He insisted speech -- or lack of speech -- is not engaging in an insurrection.
"The failure to do something is the opposite of the word 'engaged,'" he said. "President Trump didn't engage. He didn't carry a pitchfork to the Capitol grounds, he didn't lead a charge, he didn't get into a fistfight with legislators. He gave a speech in which he asked people to peacefully and patriotically go to the Capitol and protest."
Gessler called the lawsuit anti-democratic: "We argue here that this -- at its basest level -- this is election interference."
But Olson says Trump made himself ineligible when he tried to interfere with the constitution, telling supporters to march to the Capitol and fight on Jan. 6, 2021, "He used (the word) 'fight' 20 times. 'Peaceful' only once."
He showed videos of the violent attack and called as witnesses two riot police officers who responded.
"They had us encircled. I was afraid for my life and for that of my colleagues," U.S. Capitol Officer Daniel Hodges said.
Trump's attorneys tried to get the case moved to federal court or dismissed altogether saying, among other things, that the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to a former president.
"No person, not even the former president, above the law," Olson said.
Attorneys for Trump also asked the judge to recuse herself, noting she donated to a liberal group, but she refused. The trial is expected to last all week, with experts on political extremism and national security and dueling experts on the 14th Amendment.
Gessler used his opening remarks to deliver a message to the judge: "The rule of democracy says we err on the side of letting people vote."
Gessler says Trump will not make an appearance. Regardless of the ruling, the case is all but certain to be appealed, possibly all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Colorado's primary election is in March but ballots need to be set by the beginning of January, so the case is being fast-tracked.
