A judge's ruling in Colorado to allow former President Donald Trump to remain on the state's primary ballot came as a surprise, Scott Gessler, one of his attorneys in the case, told Newsmax Sunday.
"We did not expect to win, to be honest with you," Gessler said on Newsmax's "Sunday Report." "We thought the judge was not a fan of President Trump and that she was likely to rule against us so we were pretty happy when she decided to follow the law and allow [him] to run on the ballot in Colorado."
Friday, Judge Sarah Wallace rejected a bid that had been filed to disqualify Trump from remaining on the ballot in next year's election over his actions before the Jan. 6, 2021 protests at the U.S. Capitol.
The main argument in the case, Gessler said, was to claim that Trump was "engaged in insurrection."
"Their whole strategy was to rely on the Jan. 6 report, so a lot of our strategy was to make sure that [it] was not admitted into evidence because it was so biased and so political," he explained. "Unfortunately, the judge allowed that report in."
Gessler said he still thinks it's "poison" to allow the court to rely "on a politicized document like this. That is completely inappropriate."
He said Trump's side argued that the report didn't apply to him and that the "people of the state of Colorado are Americans who are the ones who get to choose who our president is … she ultimately followed that last argument."
Gessler added that had Trump lost, the case would have gone "straight to the Colorado Supreme Court" for an appeal, even though that court doesn't have to automatically take such cases.
"We think they would have, and had we lost there, we would have gone to the U.S. Supreme Court," he said. "We would have appealed it immediately, and yes, we already have our appeal written. We were ready to go if we lost it."
Meanwhile, the judge in the case "should have recused herself" because she had donated money to a group "specifically dedicated to keeping people out of office who they believe engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6," said Gessler.
"It was less than a year before this case started," he said. "We thought that was inappropriate. She should have recused herself … she said she could decide this case with an open mind, and that's why she stayed on."
via newsmax