Disqualification lawsuit against Trump’s 14th Amendment can continue, judge rules

A Colorado judge on Wednesday denied a request from lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump to dismiss a case challenging his eligibility to hold office again, saying she was not yet prepared to rule on what she called “important legal issues, many of which have never been decided by a court.”

Judge Sarah B. Wallace’s decision means the trial will continue for the rest of the week before a final ruling is made.

It came after a lawyer for Mr. Trump filed a motion for “directed judgment” — essentially a conclusion, even before the defense called witnesses, that no legally sufficient basis existed for the plaintiffs to prevail. The Trump team argued that his words and actions leading up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol were definitively protected by the First Amendment. Judge Wallace, who is presiding over the case in a district court in Denver, declined to grant the motion.

The case — one of many similar cases across the country — was filed by six Colorado voters who claim that Mr. Trump is disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars from office anyone who is “involved in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution. after taking an oath to support it.

“To be clear, I don’t decide any of these issues,” Judge Wallace said, citing, among other things, the relative weights of the First and 14th Amendments and how they interact. “I deny the motion for directed verdict because, in order to grant the motion for directed verdict, I would have to decide many legal issues that I am simply not prepared to decide today.”

This is a current news article and will be updated.