'Assaulted' Jan. 6 officers detail attack during Colorado hearing against Trump: report

30 October 2023

During the first day of a Denver, Colorado hearing in the case against ex-President Donald Trump's possible disqualification from running for a second term under the 14th Amendment, January 6 police officers offered details of what one called the "terrorist attack," The Washington Post reports.

Per the report, "The focus Monday was on Jan. 6, but later in the week, Judge Sarah B. Wallace will hear from experts on several issues, including how often the secretary of state keeps candidates off the ballot, what happens if the country elects someone who is not qualified to be president and whether Trump's actions on Jan. 6 qualified as engaging in an insurrection."

The 14th Amendment's "lesser-known Section 3 barred people from holding office if they had sworn an oath to the Constitution and then gone on to engage in an insurrection or aided or comforted the nation's enemies," the Post notes.

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"I can't remember all the different ways in which I was assaulted,” DC police officer Daniel Hodges said, according to the report. "I was afraid. I was afraid for my life and for that of my colleagues. I was afraid for the people in the United States Capitol building. I was afraid for Congress, the vice president, and what these people would do to them and how it would affect our democracy."

Additionally, the newspaper notes "an attorney played footage of chaotic scenes from Hodges's body camera that included people attempting to yank his riot baton away from him," and "After each clip, Hodges detailed what had happened to him, saying that in one scuffle, a man grabbed his face and used his thumb to try to gouge his eye out."

Trump and his attorney Scott Gessler have "dismissed the cases as a form of 'election interference, according to the Post, but regarding that claim, MSNBC's Deadline: White House blogger Jordan Rubin writes, "Putting aside the hypocrisy of that being said on behalf of someone who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, the claim crumbles as a legal argument, too, when one realizes that it amounts to an argument against the Constitution itself."

Rubin notes, "The 14th Amendment, which is at the heart of this lawsuit, was a choice the people made through their representatives. The people could have decided to not ban insurrectionists from office, but they did. And Colorado law provides a mechanism for voters to raise election challenges like the one here."

The Washington Post's full report is available at this link (subscription required). Rubin's blog is here.

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