Donald Trump’s Ballot Disqualification Trial Begins In Colorado

A trial begins on Monday in Colorado to determine whether former US President Donald Trump is disqualified from the state’s ballot in the 2024 election over his purported role in a deadly attack on the US Capitol aimed at keeping him in office.

The one-week trial before a Denver judge could also be a test of whether Trump’s opponents elsewhere have a viable path to keep him off the ballot under a rarely-used, Civil War-era provision of the US Constitution that bars people who have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding federal office.

Trump faces similar lawsuits brought by advocacy groups in Michigan and Minnesota, but the Colorado case is the first to go to trial.

Trump, a Republican, has denied wrongdoing during the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters who wanted to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s November 2020 presidential election win. Trump’s campaign has said the “absurd” lawsuit and others like it are “stretching the law beyond recognition.”

Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, according to opinion polls, in what is expected to be a rematch next year with Biden.

His opponents hope to deny Trump a path to victory by disqualifying him in enough hotly-contested states, but many legal experts call the strategy a long shot.

The cases raise largely untested legal questions, and even if the plaintiffs prevail, the final say would likely rest with a US Supreme Court dominated by a 6-3 conservative majority that includes three Trump appointees.