DENVER (AP) — Attorneys for former President Donald Trump argue that an attempt to bar him from the 2024 ballot under a rarely used “insurrection” clause of the Constitution should be dismissed as a violation of his freedom of speech.

The lawyers made the argument in a filing posted Monday by a Colorado court in the most significant of a series of challenges to Trump’s candidacy under the Civil War-era clause in the 14th Amendment. The challenges rest on Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden and his role leading up to the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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    DENVER (AP) — Attorneys for former President Donald Trump argue that an attempt to bar him from the 2024 ballot under a rarely used “insurrection” clause of the Constitution should be dismissed as a violation of his freedom of speech.

    The lawyers made the argument in a filing posted Monday by a Colorado court in the most significant of a series of challenges to Trump’s candidacy under the Civil War-era clause in the 14th Amendment.

    The former president’s lawyers also said the challenge should be dismissed because he is not yet a candidate under the meaning of Colorado election law, which they contend isn’t intended to settle constitutional disputes.

    Whatever Wallace rules, the issue is likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never heard a case on the provision of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, three years after the Civil War ended.

    Prosecutors in those cases and some legal experts have noted that Trump’s offenses go beyond speech, to acts such as trying to organize slates of fake electors that Congress could have recognized to make him president again.

    On Friday, Wallace issued an order barring threats and intimidation in the case after the plaintiffs noted that Trump has targeted lawyers and witnesses in the criminal proceedings against him.


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