Trump called January 6 beautiful. His lawyer called it shameful

It took roughly one hour into an historic US Supreme Court hearing on Thursday for the justices to get to a question at the heart of Donald Trump’s disqualification from Colorado’s ballots.

Was the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 – mounted by a mob by the former president’s supporters, fuelled by his ongoing election lies and his call to “fight like hell” on his behalf – an act of insurrection, and was then-president Trump responsible?

The former president has flatly rejected the word and downplayed the attack as he paints himself as a victim of political persecution. In front of the Supreme Court, one of his lawyers rejected the term. But he called it “criminal”.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment holds that “no person” who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution can hold any office, “civil or military, under the United States,” if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same”.

Last year, a Colorado judge determined that Mr Trump not only “engaged” with insurrection, he also “acted with the specific intent to incite political violence and direct it at the Capitol with the purpose of disrupting the electoral certification”.

Colorado’s Supreme Court later affirmed that his actions “constituted overt, voluntary, and direct participation in the insurrection,” rendering him ineligible for office under the scope of the 14th Amendment.

On Thursday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pressed the former president’s attorney for his “position” on the events of that day.

January 6 was a “riot,” according to attorney Jonathan Mitchell. An insurrection, he said, “needs to be an organised, concerted effort” to overthrow the government.

“A chaotic effort to overthrow the government is not an insurrection?” Justice