Tonight, Donald Trump has survived what was the most serious attempt to force him off the ballot in the primaries. A Colorado judge says that he can't stay on the ballot there. This is also the first time that a judge has determined that Donald Trump, the former President, engaged in insurrection. I want to read you the exact language of this ruling that just came out a few moments ago. The judge says that Trump acted with the specific intent to incite political violence and direct it at the Capitol with the purpose of disrupting the electoral certification. Why did Denver district court Judge Sarah Wallace keep him on the ballot? Because of that quote that you just heard there. She said that's because the Constitution's insurrectionist ban doesn't apply to presidents. Tonight, the Trump campaign is applauding this decision not to remove him from the ballot, but no mention yet about the extension there. There's hundreds of pages that the judge had tying the former President to January sixth. I am joined now by the attorney who represented Donald Trump in this case, and also is Colorado's former Republican Secretary of state, Scott Gessler. Scott, thank you for being here tonight.

Have you spoken with the former President? What was his reaction to this ruling?

I have not spoken with him, but obviously we've spoken with the legal team, and we're pretty satisfied with the outcome.

And is this something that you expect? I mean, the other side, we do expect the plaintiffs to appeal it here. If that happens, what's your argument going to be to the Colorado Supreme Court?

Well, I'm almost certain that the plaintiffs are going to appeal this case. We'll argue to the Colorado Supreme Court a lot of the same arguments we made before, which is the textual and historical analysis of the 14th Amendment, especially considering the fact that the way our constitution is set up, the way our republic is set up, is people get to choose who gets to be their President. We shouldn't have courts striking people from the ballot. We're also going to fully take on the court's erroneous argument that President Trump engaged in an insurrection. We think that's just flat out wrong, certainly contrary to the evidence. It was a little bit unusual for her to spend a lot of time talking about that, and then at the end, ruled that the 14th Amendment didn't apply.

Why do you think, Scott, that she did, the judge here did add those 100 pages of her going into detail about the role that she believes your client played in January sixth?

Well, I think pretty clearly she is not a fan of President Trump. But to be honest with you, normally, courts will rule on the jurisdictional issues, will rule whether the law applies before going into all of that. So it's really a backwards way of going into it compared to how courts normally do it. Maybe she just wanted to be able to say that. I don't really know her motivations along those lines. But at the end of the day, the voters of Colorado are going to be able to make the choice, not a court. And we're thankful that she respected the role of voters and stopped these efforts, or at least the effort in Colorado, which is anti-democratic, trying to strike President Trump off the ballot. But given.

The fact that she does go into such detail and is now the first judge to ever say that Donald Trump engaged in an insurrection, do you still really view this as a win here?

We can't stop the judge from saying things like that and still ruling in our favor. But I will tell you, she also said that the First Amendment protections don't apply to President Trump the way they do to everyone else, and we think that's flat wrong. So there are a lot of problems with that analysis. Maybe that will wind up contesting it, maybe not, depending on how the appeal comes out. But at the end of the day, she ruled for us, and properly so, and this is her opinion on what happened, but it has no legal authority at all because of her ruling. But I.

Guess some people would read this and see where she says that he acted with specific intent to incite political violence, directed at the Capitol, that he not only knew about the potential for violence, but that he actively promoted it and incited it on January sixth, 2021. And they'll say, Okay, yes, he is staying on the ballot, but the judge also is tying him to all of this activity, saying that he was responsible for what happened that day, and ask how this is a victory for the Trump team.

Look, part of the problem with that analysis is that what she did is she took the January sixth report, which was a wholly one-sided approach used to attack President Trump directly and politically. And she imported that whole thing into the case itself. She viewed that as reliable, which is, I think most reasonable people would view that as absurd. And so she relied upon that to make some of those decisions.

-well, there are people who would not.

Agree with that. -also, the foundation of that is rotten. I'm sorry?

Yes, there are some people who do not like the January sixth report. There are a lot of people who believe its findings. I saw you making this argument in court saying that you didn't believe that should be something that the other side was basing their argument on here. But is there anything, I guess, in the facts that she's laying out here and the statements that she's laying out here that you dispute about Trump's behavior on that day?

Absolutely. He did not act with intent or specific intent at all. We thought the evidence was very clear that he made efforts to ensure he authorized the National Guard to make sure that they were available to prevent this type of violence. If you look at his actual.

Tweets- He didn't authorize the National Guard on.

That day. -and speeches and statements. He did. He did.

Well, Cash Patel, his former aide, testified that. And Cash Patel, his former aide, testified that as one of your witnesses here. But when he was asked for any documentation or any evidence that Trump had done that, he didn't provide any.

Yeah, well, there was a second corroborative witness, Katrina Pierson. And in fact, the plaintiffs, they're called petitioners, brought in a tweet themselves.

But Katrina Pierson did work in the White House.

Let me finish. Allow me to finish. A tweet from an advisor to President Trump that actually referenced President Trump's efforts to authorize the National Guard. It was their own evidence that they brought in that referenced that. I don't think it's appropriate to say that he never authorized. That's just not fair. I don't think the evidence leans in that direction. I thought we put on pretty strong evidence, and she can say she doesn't believe people, but just because there's not a specific written document doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Frankly, part of the problem with this entire hearing was that we didn't even have the time or the ability to send out subpoenas and get this type of witness testimony, and look at other types of documents to be able to make our case. So we were very limited on what we were able to do. So to be able to say, Well, you didn't have enough or enough documents, part of that was the truncated or compressed process, the lack of our ability to compel people to talk to us, the lack of our ability to actually get documents unless someone volunteered them to us.

So there are some real problems along.

Those lines process itself. I haven't.

Seen any… I mean, this has been a whole thing. We thought there was very strong evidence.

This has been investigated time and time again, including by this committee. Donald Trump himself did not testify here. He blames Nancy Pelosi for calling the national guard that day, even though it was in his authority. But I looked at what you said on the first day of this trial. You said you believed the judge was biased and that she should recuse herself. Do you feel differently now, based on this outcome tonight?

Well, what I said initially is she had contributed money to an organization that was specifically dedicated towards removing politicians that they claimed that this group claimed can engage in an insurrection. So the very purpose of the organization she contributed to was on the bench though, right? -had already made a decision that showed her support. Before she was on the bench though, right? Well, not quite. She had already applied, and I believe she had been nominated, but not yet appointed. Plus, it was within the past year. So whether you're on the bench or not, if you do that within the past year, you usually, attorneys, look at a year as a rough deadline for viewing things in the past, and it was still pretty fresh. And so we had deep concerns about that. I'm not necessarily here to relitigate that about the judge. At the end of the day, we're respectful that the judge made the right decision. I understand she threw a lot of shade on President Trump, and we're not happy about that. And we disagree with it. But at the end of the day-But I guess my question is-and we're respectful of this, that she's respecting the Democratic processes.

Are you saying that you accept the ruling, but you're rejecting her findings here? It seems like you're having it one way and also the other.

Not at all. We accept her jurisdictional, her conclusion that the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to the presidency based on its plain text and the history as well. We certainly accept that. The other stuff she wrote in there, frankly, is not germane to her decision. Attorneys will call that dicta. In other words, it's just superfluous, excess language that didn't really make a determination on how she ruled. At the end of the day, she said that. We disagree strongly with that. But she also ruled in our favor. At the end of the day, that's what we're satisfied about, that President Trump will have the opportunity, like everyone else, to make his case, and that voters will be able to have the opportunity to vote for him if they want to. That's what democracy is about, and the judge respected that, and we appreciate it.

Yeah. Still quite a scathing ruling, saying that he acted with intent to incite political violence. Scott Gessler, the attorney in this case, thank you so much for your time tonight.