Hearings in the Colorado lawsuit questioning former President Trump’s eligibility to run for reelection continue on Friday.
The trial in Denver, which began earlier this week, is based on the argument that Trump’s alleged active involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress represents a violation of the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection clause.”
That provision bars from public office anyone who has violated an oath to the Constitution in a hostile uprising. The Civil War-era law was applied only once in the twentieth century, and only once since then: the litigants in the Colorado suit against Trump, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, successfully argued last year that Couy Griffin, a Jan. 6 rioter, was ineligible for a local office in New Mexico.
It’s likely that a ruling against the former president — either in this case or a similar suit, such as one that began Thursday in Minnesota — would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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