It’s hard to keep up with all of the trials involving former President Donald Trump, here are two you might have missed.  

Both in Colorado and Minnesota, trials are being held to ban Trump from the ballot under the Constitution’s “insurrection clause.”

This week, the trial in Colorado turned to distant history when a law professor testified about how the post-Civil War provision was indeed intended to apply to presidential candidates.

Gerard Magliocca, of Indiana University, said there was scant scholarship on Section Three of the 14th Amendment when he began researching it in late 2020. He testified that he uncovered evidence in 150-year-old court rulings, congressional testimony and presidential executive orders that it applied to presidents and to those who simply encouraged an insurrection rather than physically participated in one.

Plaintiffs in the case have argued that Colorado must ban him from the ballot because his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the U.S. Capitol, which was intended to halt Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s win and keep Trump in power, falls under the provision. The section originally was designed to prevent former Confederates from returning to their old federal and state jobs and taking over the government.

“It was not intended as punishment,” Magliocca said of the ban. “A number of senators discussed the fact that this was simply adding another qualification to office.”

Trump has slammed the Colorado proceedings in a video posted to his social media site, Truth Social.

In a reference to President Joe Biden, he said, “If crooked Joe and the Democrats get away with removing my name from the ballot, then there will never be a free election in America again. We will have become a dictatorship where your president is chosen for you. You will no longer have a vote, or certainly won’t have a meaningful vote.”

The two parallel cases were organized by two separate liberal organizations.