Court arguments begin on blocking Trump from ballot under ‘insurrection’ clause

Efforts to use the U.S. Constitution’s “insurrection” clause to bar former President Donald Trump from running for the White House again entered a new phase Monday in a hearing focused on whether the Jan. 6 Capitol attack meets the Constitution’s definition of the word and whether Trump’s role meets the threshold for being barred.

The Colorado hearing is the first of two states’ lawsuits that could end up reaching the U.S. Supreme Court.

Monday’s testimony began with details about the 2021 assault that was intended to halt certification of Joe Biden’s election win.

Attorney Eric Olson, representing a group of Colorado voters seeking to keep Trump off the ballot, recounted Trump’s violent rhetoric and encouraging of a crowd that came within “40 feet” of the vice president when they stormed the Capitol. He said Trump “summoned and organized the mob.”

“We are here because Trump claims, after all that, that he has the right to be president again,” Olson said. “But our Constitution, the shared charter of our nation, says he cannot do so.”

On Thursday, oral arguments are scheduled before the Minnesota Supreme Court on an effort to kick the Republican former president off the ballot in that state. Whether the judges keep Trump on the ballots or boot him, their rulings are likely to be swiftly appealed, eventually to the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court has never ruled on the Civil Warera provision in the 14th Amendment that prohibits those who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” against it from holding higher office.

“We’ve had hearings with presidential candidates debating their eligibility before — Barack Obama, Ted Cruz, John Mccain,” said Derek T. Muller, a Notre Dame law professor, listing candidates challenged on whether they met the constitutional requirement of being a “natural born citizen.” But these cases, Muller added, are different from using an obscure clause of the Constitution with the “incendiary” bar against insurrection.

Trump’s lawyers contend the former president never “engaged in insurrection” and was simply exercising his free speech rights.

AP FILE Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks Saturday at an annual leadership meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas. The first court arguments in the effort to bar former President Trump from running for his old job again started Monday in Colorado.