Colorado official hit with string of violent threats over Trump ballot lawsuit

Colorado’s secretary of state says she has received “hundreds if not thousands” of threats since a lawsuit was filed against Donald Trump challenging his eligibility to appear on the 2024 presidential election ballot in the state.

“I’ve been concerned about violence and threats of violence since Donald Trump incited the insurrection,” Jena Griswold told The Huffington Post on Wednesday. “Within three weeks of it being filed, I received 64 death threats and over 900 non-lethal threats of abuse. I stopped counting after that.”

Ms Griswold made the admission after the justices in Colorado’s highest court issued a majority 4-3 ruling finding that the former president must be banned from running for a second term in the White House over his role in the January 6 Capitol riot, where a mob of his supporters stormed the seat of American democracy in a bid to overturn the 2020 election.

The case was brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics on behalf of six voters who argued that Mr Trump’s speech and conduct leading up to and during the 6 January riot at the US Capitol should bar him from running for president again, and was filed by Ms Griswold in Washington last September.

“I filed it because I’m the secretary of state. I did not bring this case,” she said, as she expressed her fears about the violence.

“So yes, I’m extremely concerned. It just underlines that Donald Trump is a major threat to American democracy, elections and stability. He uses threats and intimidation against his political opponents. When he doesn’t win elections, he tries to steal them. He is a dangerous leader for this country.”

But despite the threats, she refuses to back down.

“I will not be intimidated,” she said. “We cannot allow these people trying to steal elections and using rhetoric to incite violence… to not be opposed with the truth. I’ll be as smart as possible with my security issues, but I am not going to be intimidated by Donald Trump or anybody else on the Maga right.”

In their majority ruling, the Colorado justices found that Mr Trump did indeed incite the violent insurrection that day – and also continued to support it while it was under way.

“President Trump did not merely incite the insurrection. Even when the siege on the Capitol was fully underway, he continued to support it by repeatedly demanding that Vice President (Mike) Pence refuse to perform his constitutional duty and by calling Senators to persuade them to stop the counting of electoral votes,” the opinion read.

“These actions constituted overt, voluntary, and direct participation in the insurrection.”

“We conclude that the foregoing evidence, the great bulk of which was undisputed at trial, established that President Trump engaged in insurrection.

“President Trump’s direct and express efforts, over several months, exhorting his supporters to march to the Capitol to prevent what he falsely characterized as an alleged fraud on the people of this country were indisputably overt and voluntary.”

Mr Trump’s campaign plans to appeal to the US Supreme Court.

The ruling comes after a state judge last month ruled that Mr Trump did indeed incite the insurrection – but that this did not mean she could remove him from the ballot.