Decision expected Friday on whether former President Donald Trump is eligible for Colorado's primary ballot
A Denver District Court judge is expected to decide this week whether former President Donald Trump is eligible for Colorado's 2024 primary ballot.
Closing arguments in a lawsuit filed by six Colorado voters wrapped up Wednesday.
Sean Grimsley, an attorney for the petitioners, argues that Trump engaged in an insurrection by inciting a violent mob to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to try to stop the peaceful transfer of power. He says that makes him ineligible to hold office under the 14th Amendment.
"Such a person has proven themselves untrustworthy and incapable of insuring we remain a country ruled by law and not by men through his actions and his actions alone... Donald Trump has disqualified himself from ever holding office again," he said.
Trump's attorney - former Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler - says there's no evidence that Trump intended to incite violence and violence, he says, doesn't equal an insurrection.
"I would say as if the petitioners' case the foundation of it... is... it is rotted... it is a rotten foundation... the Jan. 6 report was originally used for political purposes to... sort of... an election issue... and that has failed I mean, like it or not for the office, president Trump remains reliable in many instances considered a leading candidate for the presidency," he said.
He says the lawsuit amounts to election interference and is based entirely on the Jan. 6 Committee's report which he says is completely one-sided.
The trial - which ended two weeks ago - included testimony from D.C. riot police, rally goers, constitutional experts, and two members of congress.
If petitioners succeed, their lawsuit could provide a playbook for other states.
If they can keep Trump off the primary ballot in enough states, they hope to keep him from getting the needed delegates to secure the Republican presidential nomination.
Regardless of the judge's decision, the case is all but certain to be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Similar lawsuits challenging Trump's ballot eligibility under the 14th Amendment have failed recently in Michigan and Minnesota.
