JANUARY 26, 2024
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: President Donald Trump greets the crowd at the “Stop The Steal” Rally on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation’s capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – Donald Trump engaged in insurrection by inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a group of Colorado voters told the Supreme Court in a historic case that threatens the viability of his bid to reclaim the White House.
In a 60-page filing Friday, the voters said Trump is seeking a “free pass” from the constitutional clause that bars insurrectionists from holding office. The Colorado Supreme Court said the provision meant Trump can’t appear on the presidential election ballot there after he tried to overturn his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.
“Nobody, not even a former president, is above the law,” the voters said in advance of the scheduled Feb. 8 Supreme Court arguments.
Trump last week urged the Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado ruling, arguing that he didn’t engage in insurrection and that the clause doesn’t apply to presidents. He told the justices that efforts to bar him from running would unleash “chaos and bedlam” if successful.
The voters, represented by the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, blasted that warning Friday as a not-so-subtle threat.
“We already saw the ‘bedlam’ Trump unleashed when he was on the ballot and lost,” the voters argued. The insurrection clause “is designed precisely to avoid giving oath-breaking insurrectionists like Trump the power to unleash such mayhem again.”
A broad Supreme Court decision in Trump’s favor would doom the push to kick him off ballots around the country, while a ruling against him would fuel that drive. Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
The case turns on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, enacted shortly after the Civil War as the nation grappled with the status of former Confederate soldiers and leaders. The provision says a person who took an oath to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” is ineligible to hold office again.
The case is Trump v. Anderson, 23-719.
Courtesy: Bloomberg
