>> are we ready to begin? >> yes, your honor. i think we are getting out part -- output. we need to turn these back on. >> we do have a microphone. >> thank you, your honor morning. six colorado voters, four republicans and two independents brought this case to ensure colorado has a fair election among eligible candidates. trump incited a violent mob to attack our u.s. capitol, to stop the peaceful transfer of power under our constitution. that mob got within 40 feet of vice president pence after they chased him from the senate floor. that mob tried to hurt and kill our elected leaders, and we are here because trump claims, after all that, ye has a right to be president again. but our constitution, our shared charter of our nation says he cannot do so. in colorado law says this court must ensure that only eligible candidates appear on our ballots. this case has four basic components. trump took an oath as officer of the united states january 6 was an insurrection against the constitution. trump engaged in that insurrection in the secretary of state enforces constitutional qualifications in this board can order her to keep in eligible candidates off the ballot. turning to the first element, there's no dispute trump took an oath as president. i'll address the novel claim that his oath falls outside the 14th amendment later. and what happen on january 6 was an insurrection against the constitution. trump's own impeachment lawyer admitted as much. many others have founded. we will hear, today and tomorrow, from three people who were there that day. first are two officers, officer danny hodges, and officer winston, they fought the mob, hand in hand combat, you will see. we will hear from representative eric swalwell who will explain how that mob disrupted the core constitutional process of the peaceful transfer of power. we will also hear from professor gerard. he is one of the nation's leading experts on section three of the 14th amendment. he has written several peer-reviewed articles on section three and many articles and books on the history of the 14th amendment. he will explain that when the 14th amendment was ratified, insurrection against the constitution referred to any public use or threat of violence by a group to prevent or hinder the execution of the constitution. january easily meets that standard. trump assembled a violent mob that tried to prevent the constitutional transfer of power and did in fact stop that transfer of power for some time. turning to president trump's role in all this, he engaged in this insurrection on january 6. he began by undermining the process by selecting our president and sowing doubts about election. this early pattern of behavior shows trump's use of common extremist tactics using language that played into existing conspiracy theories. he was a leading proponent of the birth or myth about president obama. he questioned the validity of elections, even the one he won in 2016, claiming he got millions more popular votes and he really did. and leading up to the 2020 election he developed a plan to cast out on the results. after the election he quickly focus on the january 6 trencher of power to disrupt -- transfer of power to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. in december he started laying the groundwork for disrupting the constitutional process. on december 19, eight he posted, big protest in d.c. on generally six, be there, will be wild. a week later he talked about never giving up. everyone in d.c. on january 6. c will washington, d.c. on january 6, don't miss it. again, see you in d.c. these tweets continued. a protest rally, stop the steal. we'll hear about the importance of that language later on. again, talking about the six over and over again. he retweeted a claim that calvary was coming. we will hear about trump's invocation of military terms to support and rile up his supporters. more admonitions come to d.c. on january 6, over and over and over again. and then on january 6, he reposted his speech. that in addition to this drumbeat of pleas to his supporters, to have him come to washington to disrupt the transfer of power on january 6, he made repeated, deliberate statements to bring a mob crying for violence to d.c. on january 6. he refused to criticize the proud boys, in important part of the insurrection on january 6 in a presidential debate. and told them to stand back and stand by. >> stanback and stand by. >> leading up to january 6, he praised the trump train, which is a group of trucks that intimidated and force biting campaign workers off the highway in texas. he tweeted, i love texas with this video. >> 3, 2, 1, go. >> he deliberately praised his supporters that used violent techniques to intimidate political opponents, again leading up to january 60 used violent and inflammatory rhetoric. he claimed that if it happened to someone else they would consider it an act of war and fight to the death. right before january 6 he started threatening lawmakers with a crowd he assembled. on the afternoon of january for he said, washington was being inundated with people. our country has had enough, they won't take it anymore. he got even more bold a few moments later when he said, i hope the democrats, and even more importantly, the week and ineffective rino republican party are looking at the thousands of people pouring into d.c. they won't stand for a landslide election victory to be stolen. he identified three republican leaders by name. he threatened leaders of his own party with the mop he assembled. you will hear from an expert in political extremism will discuss trump's relationship with violence and political extremism. this professor has studied extremism for his whole career. he has written books, provided testimony at the generally six committees invitation, and he will explain how communications like we just saw, and additional ones by president trump, fit into a long-standing call and response pattern that he developed with supporters, for he instigated violence in praised those who committed violence against lyrical opponents on his behalf. turn back to a happened on generally sixth. once trump wrought the crowd there, he told them to march to the capital and fight -- u.s. capitol and fight. let's look at to portions of his speech on generally sixth. -- january 6. >> like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. is like a boxer. and we won't be so nice. we won't be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. they will have to get through us force. and if he doesn't, it won't be -- for our country. because we will uphold our constitution. now it's up to congress to confront disagree just assault on our democracy. and after this we will walk down, and i will be there with you, we will walk down to the u.s. capitol and we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we are probably not going to be cheering so much for a couple of them. because we will never take back our country with weakness, we have to shows -- show strength and we have to be strong. we will fight and fight like hell. if you don't fight like hell, you won't have a country anymore. it has not yet begun. for our children and for our beloved country. i say this, despite all that's happened, the best is yet to come. so, we are going to walk down pennsylvania avenue, i love pennsylvania, and we are going to the capitol, and we are going to try -- the democrats are hopeless, they never stand for anything. not even one vote. but we are going to try to give our republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don't need any of our help, we are going to try to give them the kind we need to take back our country. so, let's walk down pennsylvania avenue. i will thank you all, god bless you and god bless america. >> two important features of that speech we just saw. first is his focus of the crowd on the actions of mike pence that was shortly to happen in the senate chamber, and second, his repeated reference to fight and urging his supporters to fight. now, i'm sure that trump will claim that because he used the words, "peacefully and patriotically" later in that speech, that he did not engage in insurrection. that is wrong on every level. he used fight 20 times in that speech. peaceful only once. the professor explains how leaders use language like that, like the peacefully, to create plausible deniability that is just filter. trump well knew how his words would respond -- supporters would respond. he saw what would happen when he's at stanback and stand by and how they treated that as an endorsement. his use of peaceful in the rally and used in this proceeding, highlights that he knew the power of his other words. if you don't think people are going to engage in violence after what you told them or that your words will provoke violence, you don't need to say be peaceful. they already will be. but that speech that we just saw got the crowd worked up and headed to the capitol. i will show you a video taken from the top of the capitol at two: 23. you can see the timestamp in the upper left. after the speech, trump -- the crowd followed trump's orders and marched down to the capitol. but you can see from the video they weren't doing much, there were just standing there. so what did trump do the minute after this video? he posted a tweet that incited the mop to violence again, channeling on the focus of mike pence use early in the day. he described him as weak and said he didn't have the courage to do what should have been been to protect our country, constitution, usa demands the truth. and look at what happens, instantaneously with this tweet we see people in the crowd with bullhorns, they immediately started chanting hanged mike pence in the violence began in earnest. >> [indiscernible] >> [chanting "hanged mike pence -- "hang mike pence"] >> [indiscernible] >> there was no possible innocent explanation for that tweet that sent the crowd on fire. we will hear later today from officer hodges, this is his bodycam at the exact same time. you can see in the upper right-hand corner, it's 2:28. within five minutes of trump issuing that tweet, this is what he faced. >> within 30 minutes of the tweet, we see the picture from the same vantage point we saw before, the crowd had overrun the barriers, but this was the back of the crowd. this was a crowd that was not the frontline of the attack of the assault on our constitutional process. we have video that shows officer hodges, within 30 minutes of the tweet, he had retreated to the tunnel, was trying to defend the tunnel against this mob. [screaming] >> that is officer hodges, who you will hear from shortly. this was in insurrection that trump led as we've seen, he summoned and organized the mob. he gave the mob a common purpose, disrupt mike pence certification of the election. he did that by inciting the mob at the . he knew that mob was armed and dangerous, he told the mob to go to the u.s. capitol with him, once they were there, and not sufficiently violent, he incited the mob at 2:24 p.m. tweet and others that followed and importantly, he help the mob by refusing to mobilize resources to stop the attack. he spent three hours watching it unfold on tv without doing a single thing, even though he was the most powerful person in the world. now, what does trump say in response to this overwhelming evidence? he says a few things. he says, i said peacefully in the speech, so i did not engage in the insurrection. i already talked about that. that peacefully produces intent. he then says, i wasn't there. i did not engage in insurrection. but he did. he kept quiet, he tweeted inflammatory statements that incited the mob and watched the mayhem unfold for three hours with doing nothing. he continued to try to press her congress to overturn the election and lastly, trump says others failed to protect the u.s. capitol and it's not my fault there was in insurrection. he blames others but it was trump's dereliction of duty in violation of his oath to preserve, protect and defend the constitution that caused the constitutional process to stop. you will hear from national security expert bill banks who has dedicated his career to the safety of our nation, studying how it works, he wrote a book recently called soldiers on the home front, the domestic role of the american military. he explains that trump did not use the available federal resources. in fact, trump didn't use the resources used in response to other threats, like the black matter protest at lafayette square, where they used teargas and federal agents to -- to clear the square very violently. trump is going to call witnesses, we understand, to say that he tried to put people in place to defend the u.s. capitol before january 6. that is not true. no record exists of him doing that, no indication that he used his vast power as commander-in-chief to do that at all, that is just an invented excuse after the fact, with no evidentiary support. but even that doesn't matter, trump cannot avoid culpability for engaging insurrection by blaming the victim. whether or not in insurrection occurred does not turn on how well defended the capital was. he ignited the mob, told them to go to the u.s. capitol and inflame them. finally, trump says the law doesn't apply to him. first because he said he was just using speech. but again, this professor explains the history of section three of the 14th amendment in using robust historical sources show that at the time of passage, 1860 eight, engaging insurrection included words of incitement or specific words of encouragement. that's what trump did here. and in any event, it's not just trump's speech that was of issue, his conduct contributed to the violence, his failure to act when his oath required him to do so, led to the insurrection. trump brings an expert, the professor that is no expert at all on the 14th amendment. never written a book or peer-reviewed article on this issue on the 14th amendment more generally, not performed any original history. there's no record of him studying this before he wrote a short opinion piece two months ago. trump next argues that the 14th amendment doesn't cover the president, that there's an exception because he's a different kind of officer. again, the professor will explain why history contradicts this claim. it's nonsensical to create an exception for the most powerful person in government and at the time in 1860 eight, there's a widespread understanding of an officer including the president. trump claims that it can't -- and we talked about he's wrong and the colorado law. it makes clear that the election code requires issues regarding a candidates eligibility to be determined by the courts, which is what we are doing here, in addition to this bedrock law, we will also hear from hilary rudy, was the deputy director and the secretary of state selection division, and she will explain the history of secretary of state enforcement of qualifications and qualification challenges in court and i think we will easily conclude that this action falls well within a long line of cases where courts decide valid eligibility requirements. our constitution prevents people who betray their solemn oats, as trump did here, from serving in office again. colorado law gives these voters the right to make sure their votes will count by coming to the court and trump engaged an insurrection. no person, not even the former president is above the law. we ask that this court find trump is an ineligible candidate and order the secretary of state not to place him on the ballot. thank you, your honor. >> thank you, your honor. i don't have a highly produced video but i doave a few words i think this court should think about in this case. the united states is the oldest modern democracy, well over 200 years, far different than many -- any other country in many ways. what makes us different is the experiment we launched which is this thing called elections. that means, when it comes to decide who should lead our nation, it is the people of the united states of america who get to make those decisions. not six voters in colorado who have picked and chosen who they want to file a lawsuit against. the court should not interfere with that fundamental rule of democracy. the people get to decide. this lawsuit seeks to cancel that principle. this lawsuit is antidemocratic. it looks to extend which the opportunity -- extinguish the opportunity for millions of coloradans to be able to choose and vote for the presidential candidate they want, in fact, the leading republican presidential candidate. by many -- they want to extinguish the opportunity to prevent him from running for office. it is antidemocratic. it seeks to interfere with the presidential election. we argue that this is election interference. the petitioners here, the six voters have appointed themselves private attorney general's that can pick and choose who they seek to disqualify, and they rely on exceptionally weak and in some cases fringe logical and legal theories to tilt the playing field by wiping out president trump's ability to run for election before anyone has the ability to vote. they are asking today for a number of historical first. first, they are asking this court to be the first ever in american history to disqualify a presidential candidate under section three of the 14th amendment. we have pointed the court to horace greeley. he had paid for jefferson thomas' bail, he was loudly accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy shortly after the civil war. lots of debate, nobody ever once thought of trying to disqualify him from voting. they took those arguments to the people. a socialist party usa candidate in four elections ran from jail. he had been convicted of sedition for giving aid and comfort to enemies during the first world war, he was convicted of that, he ran from jail, he was never disqualified, no attempt was made to disqualify him under section three of the 14th amendment. the case is often referred to as a low point in american history when it comes to first american protection, and for good reason. people should be able to run for office. the petitioners asked the court to be the first state or in american history to disqualify a presidential and that it. they are asking for the first time in american has re-to disqualify any federal candidate . this is the first time in colorado history anyone has tried to disqualify a presidential candidate under the 14th amendment. asking the secretary of state to go back and research a candidates behavior is also a first, it has never been asked or demanded before. right now, there are about 50 cases nationwide specifically attacking president trump, this is not a new tactic. this is the first where a dismissal has not promptly been granted because of the weakness of so many of these arguments. they are asking for the first time that the january 6 were be treated as evidence in this court, that this court rely on that for evidence. they are asking this court is the first ever to embrace a number of legal theories that have never been embraced by a court. there is a lot of firsts they are trying in this case. we are arguing that we should not even be here. this is a federal issue, perhaps the most important federal issue we can have area it's for congress to set the standards, not for petitioners. we have argued that the 14th amendment is not self executing and we understand this court has ruled against us and every instance, but nearly every court that has ever looked at presidential qualifications, i'm not just talking about issues involving president trump. i live in denver, i understand sirens, unfortunately. it is not just president trump. you may recall there was some controversy about president obama's citizenship, and about candidate mccains citizenship, about senator cruz's citizenshi
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