CNN’s Kaitlan Collins grilled Scott Gessler, Trump’s Attorney and the former secretary of state in Colorado, about the judge in the 14th amendment case saying Trump incited an insurrection.

State Judge Sarah Wallace ruled on Friday night that Trump won’t be taken off the ballot over a 14th Amendment challenge. But in her decision, the judge also implicated Trump in engaging in insurrection.

On Friday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins interviewed Gessler, and dug in on the judge’s lengthy and detailed support for the insurrection charge — repeatedly asking the lawyer “How this is a victory?”

COLLINS: 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 6th?

GESSLER: Well, I think, pretty clearly, she’s 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 sort of 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, it’s, 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 the sort of efforts, or at least the effort in Colorado, which is anti-democratic, trying to strike President Trump off the ballot.

COLLINS: 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?

GESSLER: 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 — we’ll 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, and the way she did.

COLLINS: 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 6th, 2021.

And they’ll say, “OK, 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?

GESSLER: Look, part of the problem, with that analysis, is that what she did is she took the January 6th 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.

COLLINS: But there are people, who would not agree with that.

GESSLER: And so, the foundation of that is rotten.

COLLINS: Right, Scott?

GESSLER: I’m sorry?

COLLINS: There are people, yes, there are some people who do not like the January 6 report. There are a lot of people, who believe its findings.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.

The post ‘How Is This A Victory?’ CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Grills Trump Lawyer Over Judge Saying Trump ‘Incited Insurrection’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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