Today in a court in Colorado, the presentation of legal arguments began for a lawsuit that aims to use a constitutional provision on “insurrection” to prevent former President Donald Trump from running again for this office.
Testimony at today’s hearing will focus on whether the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 constituted sedition as defined by the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution and whether Mr. Trump’s role in it would bar him from holding office. a state duty.
Former President Trump’s lawyers described the case as “anti-democratic”.
This week, the Supreme Court of Minnesota is expected to begin consideration of another similar lawsuit.
Both cases are expected to end up in the Supreme Court.
The country’s highest court has never ruled on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
The preliminary hearing in Colorado began with details about the 2021 attack aimed at preventing the certification of the election result declaring Mr. Joe Biden the winner. Lawyer Eric Olson, representing a group of Colorado voters, is seeking to bar Mr. Trump from running, detailing Mr. Trump’s violent rhetoric and inciting a crowd that came within 40 feet of the vice president’s office when stormed the Capitol. He said Mr Trump “ordered and organized the crowd”.
“We are here because Mr. Trump claims that after all this, he has the right to be President again,” said Mr. Olson. “But our Constitution determines that he cannot.”
However, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Scott Gessler, called the lawsuit “anti-democratic” and noted that at least one presidential candidate, Eugene Debs, ran for office while in prison and no one tried to disqualify him. that from the race.
“Who will lead the nation is determined by American citizens and not by 6 voters from Colorado who have chosen to sue him,” he said.
On Thursday, the Minnesota Supreme Court is expected to hear similar arguments to prevent Mr. Trump from running in this state.
Regardless of the decisions of the judges in these two states, the likelihood is that the case will be quickly appealed, most likely to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has never heard a case involving the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, enacted during the Civil War.
This amendment prohibits public officials who are sworn to uphold the Constitution, but then “engage in rebellion to subvert the constitutional order” from holding public office again.
“In the past, there were preliminary hearings on the legality of candidates to be elected President. Candidates Barack Obama, Ted Cruz and John McCain faced legal challenges regarding the constitutional requirement that the candidate be born in the United States. But these legal cases are quite different from this vague constitutional point of the Amendment that prohibits running for office in case of participation in the uprising”, says Derek T. Muller, professor of legal law at the University of “Notre Dame”, in the state of Indiana.
A number of lawsuits citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution have been filed in recent months, but lawsuits in Colorado and Minnesota appear to be the most significant, according to legal experts.
This is due to the fact that they were filed by two liberal groups that are supported by well-versed legal experts. Lawsuits have also been filed in certain states and aim for quick and clear processes related to the criteria for candidates to be elected.
In this lawsuit, the argument is simple, Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election led to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, which means he is barred from running for President, as well as failing to criteria related to the fact that candidates must have been born in the United States or other constitutional criteria that must be met to run for the White House.
“Four years after taking office, swearing that, as President of the United States, he would be the protector and guarantor of the Constitution, Mr. Trump sought to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, which prompted the violent uprising against the Capitol, to prevented the transfer of power. By inciting this unprecedented attack on the nation’s constitutional order, Mr. Trump violated his oath of office and disqualified himself from holding public office as defined by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution,” the lawsuit filed in the state of Colorado on behalf of to Republican voters and those without political affiliation, from the liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, in Washington.
Former President Trump says the lawsuits are “election interference.”
Mr. Trump has described the lawsuits as “interference in the election”. Mr. Trump’s lawyers say that this constitutional point does not affect the office of the President, since the President is not clearly mentioned in the definition, just as it is defined for “Senators or Representatives of Congress.”
This amendment allows Congress to approve amnesty, as it did in 1872, for those who supported the Confederacy to be part of the government again, which has prompted some to argue that the amendment has no effect without an act of approval by Congress.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers argue that the former president “was never involved in the uprising” and that he was simply exercising his right to express himself on the outcome of the election, which, according to him, was manipulated.
“Mr. Trump did not even call for a violation of law, no longer to engage in insurgency,” his lawyers wrote in the legal file related to the case in the state of Colorado.