For archival purposes and da keks…small dig on Judge Code of Conduct + article on Colorado (demonrat) Judge's refusal to recuse after donating $100 to a dark money demonrat group.
Article:
Lawyers argue whether the Constitution’s ‘insurrection’ clause blocks Trump from the 2024 ballot
by: NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Associated Press
Posted: Oct 30, 2023 / 05:23 PM MDT
Updated: Oct 30, 2023 / 06:25 PM MDT
https://kdvr.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-court-arguments-begin-in-effort-to-bar-trump-from-presidential-ballot-under-insurrection-clause/
Colorado lawyers seeking to disqualify former President Donald Trump from running for the White House again argued on Monday that his role in the January 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol runs afoul of the Constitution’s insurrection clause, opening a hearing that could break new ground in constitutional law.
The case will pivot on whether the Jan. 6 attack meets the meaning of “insurrection” in the 14th Amendment. It will also hinge on whether Trump’s action meets the definition of “engaging” and whether the rarely used provision was meant to apply to the presidency.
Trump’s lawyers contend the former president was simply exercising his free speech rights to warn about election results he did not believe were legitimate. They noted cases where the congressional authors of Section Three declined to use it more than a century ago against people who only rhetorically backed the confederacy.
His lawyers said none of the issues are simple in a provision of the Constitution that hasn’t been used in 150 years. In court filings, they said the insurrection clause was never meant to apply to the office of president, which is not mentioned in the text, unlike “Senator or Representative in Congress” and “elector of President and Vice President.”
“This is a legal Hail Mary by the Democrats,” said Mike Davis, an attorney who appeared with representatives of the Trump campaign outside court before the trial began. “This case is going to fail.”
An attorney representing Trump, Scott Gessler, called the lawsuit “anti-democratic” and noted that at least one other presidential candidate — socialist labor organizer Eugene Debs — ran from prison without people trying to disqualify him.
A former Colorado secretary of state, Gessler said there is an informal principle in election law known as “the rule of democracy,” which essentially means to “err on the side of letting people vote” whenever there is an ambiguity.
At the start of Monday’s hearing — held in a large downtown Denver courtroom filled with attorneys, journalists and several armed sheriff’s deputies — the judge rejected the motion by Trump’s attorneys that asked her to step aside because she once contributed money to a liberal group.
Trump’s campaign said it had filed a motion for the judge, Sarah B. Wallace, torecuse herself because she had made a $100 donation in October 2022 to the Colorado Turnout Project, a group whose website says it was formed to “prevent violent insurrections” such as the Jan. 6 attack.
She was appointed to the bench in August of that year by Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat. Wallace denied the motion, saying she didn’t recall the donation, made before she formally took the bench, until the motion was filed and has no preconceptions about the legal issues in the case.
“I will not allow this legal proceeding to turn into a circus,” she said.
^^^fuckin KeK^^^ what a hoebag.
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Dig:
https://ccjd.colorado.gov/sites/ccjd/files/documents/Colo%20Code%20Jud%20Conduct.pdf
Colorado still retains avoiding even the appearance of impropriety in their Judge Code of Conduct. I'd say donating to a Jan 6 Insurrection Group to "protect our democracy" could be construed as her having the appearance of a conflict of interest, since the average person would not donate to such an organization. Can't find the org, nor the donation.. not sure how they dug it up. I guess donating to ALL DEMONRATS doesn't mean she has a conflict of interest in a POLITICAL case? (pic rel)
https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=Sarah+Wallace&cycle=&state=&zip=80238&employ=&occupation=&jurisdiction=&cand=&type=
https://lawecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1076&context=luclj
Learned from this leftist article that in 2007 the ABA [they] tried to remove the APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest from the Model Code of Judicial Conduct. The Conference of Chief Justices of the states' highest courts "weighed in" on the matter and basically told them to reconsider their revision. They did. Fascinating. This war has been going on for far longer than most of us know… 2007 a battle was won, and most had no clue.