Both the legal team for former President Donald Trump and a group of six voters represented by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) on Monday evening appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court over a lower court’s ruling that Trump should appear on the state’s Republican primary ballot despite finding that he engaged in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
CREW’s initial legal challenge sought to bar Trump from appearing on the ballot in 2024 due to an alleged violation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — a constitutional clause that prevents anyone from holding office again if they took an oath “as an officer of the United States” but then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.”
CREW argued that Trump’s conduct around Jan. 6 and his push to overturn his 2020 election defeat were disqualifying, but that was rejected by Colorado District Court Judge Sarah B. Wallace on Friday.
In a lengthy opinion, however, Wallace also issued a historic set of findings, including the first legal ruling that concluded that the former president had incited insurrection through his actions on Jan. 6, which was also the first time a presidential candidate has been found to have engaged in insurrection by a court.
“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,” Wallace wrote.
