14th Amendment applies to presidents, "expert" argues at Trump’s Colorado trial

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Attorneys called on a 14th Amendment expert in the hearing’s third day, Indiana University law professor Gerard Magliocca, to lay out exactly how to define “insurrection” and how it should apply to presidents.

What insurrection means is at the center of the case, as Trump campaign attorneys argue that the 14th Amendment’s third section does not apply to Trump both because his actions don’t fit the term “insurrection” and because the clause can’t apply to presidents due to specific readings of the amendment.

The plaintiff’s lead attorney, Eric Olson, has argued the Colorado case has four basic components: Trump took an oath as an officer of the U.S., the Capitol attack was an insurrection, Trump engaged in that insurrection and Colorado’s secretary of state can be ordered by the court to keep him off the state’s ballot because of it.

Magliocca’s expert testimony Wednesday was intended to build the first two pillars of the case’s argument. Separate expert testimony Tuesday focused on the third pillar, regarding Trump’s involvement with right-wing extremist groups.

Magliocca explained that the 14th Amendment’s third section was enacted after the Civil War as a way to keep Confederate-supporting politicians out of office unless they were given amnesty by Congress.

But he was clear that the section was not intended to only fit the Civil War, and that it could also apply to future “insurrections.”

Magliocca defined an insurrection, using a number of historical legal citations, as “any public use of force or threat of force, by a group of people to hinder or prevent the execution of the law.”

The plaintiff’s attorneys are expected to argue that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol fits that definition, and separately, that Trump’s actions on and before the attack fall under giving “aid or comfort” to those who participated in it.

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