Trial to Remove Trump from Ballot Begins - Guess Who Appointed Judge Hearing the Case?
On Monday, hearings began that could take former President Donald Trump off of the ballot in what may be a swing state. And, surprise, surprise, the judge hearing the legal challenge was appointed by the state’s Democratic governor.
According to Colorado Newsline, the proceedings began in a courtroom in Denver under the watchful eye of Judge Sarah Wallace, an appointment of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
She was appointed in August 2022.
The case is the latest in a series of legal actions targeting Trump and Trump-allied Republicans who dared to urge that the 2020 election not receive the rubber stamp of certification of Congress.
Democratic politicians have done this in every election this century that they’ve lost, mind you, but the Capitol incursion helped the media forget about this.
Now, yet another group says the GOP’s leading 2024 presidential candidate shouldn’t be on the ballot because of an obscure, vestigial part of the 14th Amendment that dates to the Civil War and bars anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” (read: joined with the Confederates) from holding federal office.
However, the six Colorado voters and the watchdog group that joined them, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, claim the amendment is pliable enough to apply to Trump.
“Donald Trump tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election,” reads the legal complaint, which was filed on Sept. 6.
“His efforts culminated on January 6, 2021, when he incited, exacerbated, and otherwise engaged in a violent insurrection at the United States Capitol by a mob who believed they were following his orders, and refused to protect the Capitol or call off the mob for nearly three hours as the attack unfolded,” it says.
These cases have been tried before — and failed to get traction. However, this one could be different.
As Colorado Newsline noted, “the Colorado case — the first to be filed by CREW, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., and the first to go to trial — represents the most substantial test for such efforts to date.”
“CREW represented plaintiffs who cited the 14th Amendment in a successful suit to remove from office Couy Griffin, a county commissioner in Otero County, New Mexico, who had participated in the Jan. 6 attack,” the outlet said.
A small-potatoes politician who actively participated in the incursion is different from the current GOP frontrunner for president, however — and one would be a fool not to notice.
“After the 2020 election cycle, President Trump made various statements and took various legal actions questioning the fairness or accuracy of the announced results,” Trump’s attorney said in a motion to dismiss on Sept. 29.
“But he is hardly the first politician to do that — and Petitioners identify no facts that could convert this political controversy into an insurrection against the government.”
Opening arguments in the case began Monday.
According to poll/stat wonk website FiveThirtyEight, President Joe Biden holds a consistent but not substantial lead in a hypothetical head-to-head presidential matchup against Trump in Colorado, which tends blue but can surprise on occasion. The last poll listed by the site, an Emerson College survey taken Oct. 1-4, showed Biden with a 4-point advantage, 42 percent to 38 percent.
For her part, Wallace had said she would not respond to arguments made by Trump’s lawyers contesting “whether President Trump engaged in an insurrection.”
“This is an issue that will be addressed at the hearing set to begin October 30, 2023,” she wrote.
Given who appointed her, that could be a very ominous sign indeed — especially since this could make it all the way to the Supreme Court if a Democrat-appointed judge kicks the political opposition off the ballot.
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