Former President Donald Trump can appear on Colorado’s primary ballot despite his having engaged in an insurrection for his role in Jan. 6, 2021, a judge ruled Friday.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit seeking to remove Trump from the ballot on the grounds that Section III of the Fourteenth Amendment bars from public office anyone who has “taken an oath” but then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” The lawyers who filed the suit said they would appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court in the coming days.
“The Court finds that Petitioners have established that Trump engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 through incitement, and that the First Amendment does not protect Trump’s speech,” District Court Judge Sarah B. Wallace wrote in her ruling.
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“Such incendiary rhetoric, issued by a speaker who routinely embraced political violence and had inflamed the anger of his supporters leading up to the certification, was likely to incite imminent lawlessness and disorder,” the judge wrote.
But, she said, the relevant clause of the Constitution did not apply to Trump, since the presidency was not actually named in that amendment and Trump, thus, did not meet the qualification of “an officer of the United States.”
It’s the third such bid to have Trump removed from the ballot, following similar challenges in Minnesota and Michigan. The judges in those cases also ruled that Trump can remain on the Republican primary ballots.
Read it at Wallace’s Ruling
