Trump suffers first loss as 14th Amendment court case starts in Colorado

Donald Trump suffered a minor loss in the first minutes of a trial considering a lawsuit seeking to keep him off the Colorado ballot.

A weeklong hearing got underway Monday in the case, and Judge Sarah B. Wallace immediately rejected a Trump motion that she recuse herself because she made a $100 donation to the liberal group Colorado Turnout Project last year, saying she did not recall the donation until the motion was filed and that she had no preconceptions about the case, reported the Associated Press.

“I will not allow this legal proceeding to turn into a circus,” Wallace said.

Dozens of challenges citing Section Three of the 14th Amendment have been filed across the country in recent months, but the Colorado lawsuit and a similar case in Minnesota seem the most significant to legal experts because they were filed by liberal groups with substantial resources and each of those states have clear, swift processes for challenging ballot qualifications.

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“Four years after taking an oath to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the Constitution as President of the United States ... Trump tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, leading to a violent insurrection at the United States Capitol to stop the lawful transfer of power to his successor,” alleges the Colorado lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of Republican and unaffiliated voters by the liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

“By instigating this unprecedented assault on the American constitutional order," the suit adds, "Trump violated his oath and disqualified himself under the Fourteenth Amendment from holding public office, including the Office of the President.”

The rulings in both cases will likely be appealed right away and could wind up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never ruled on the Civil War-era provision prohibiting those who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” 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. “Those legal questions are very heavy ones."