U.S. Supreme Court
Should former US President Donald Trump be barred from running for president again because of his “participation in the insurrection,” which was the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021? That’s the question facing the U.S. Supreme Court this week. The Supreme Court is hearing Trump’s appeal of a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that would bar him from running in the state’s presidential primary.
The Supreme Court, where the conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump, has set aside 80 minutes for oral arguments at 10 a.m. local time Thursday, but it is expected to be longer.
The Colorado Supreme Court banned Trump from participating in the state’s Republican primary in December due to his role in previous attacks on Congress.
Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, appealed to the Supreme Court, urging it to overturn Colorado’s ruling and block moves by other states to exclude him from the ballot.
“The courts should quickly and decisively end these efforts to disqualify ballots, which could threaten the disenfranchisement of tens of millions of Americans,” Trump’s lawyers said. They warned that if other states “follow Colorado’s lead, , excluding potential Republican presidential candidates from the ballot” would lead to “chaos and turmoil.”
So far, only Colorado and Maine have invoked the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to rule that the 77-year-old Trump is not eligible to participate in the primary election.
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment bars any person from holding public office who engages in “rebellion or insurrection” after pledging to support and defend the Constitution.
Colorado and Maine will hold races for the presidential nomination on March 5, also known as Super Tuesday, when voters in more than a dozen states, including California and Texas, will go to the polls. .
Trump’s lawyers said in a brief that Article 3 of the Constitution should not apply because the president is not technically an “officer of the United States,” an argument rejected by the Colorado Supreme Court. Additionally, they argued that “the court should also overturn this verdict because President Trump did not ‘participate in the insurrection.'”
They said, “President Trump never participated in or directed any illegal actions that occurred at the Capitol.”
On January 6, 2021, Trump delivered a fiery speech to thousands of supporters in Washington, who later gathered at the Capitol to try to stop Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.
Trump was impeached by the Democratic-majority House of Representatives on charges of “incitement of insurrection” but was acquitted by the Senate.
Steven Schwinn, a constitutional law professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t have much experience handling Article 3 cases and “it’s hard to predict how different justices will resolve this issue.” Schwinn said
“Having said that, I anticipate that this court may not fully uphold the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling… I suspect that the majority of this court will not want to be seen as depriving a large number of voters of their right to choose.” He said: “The court is most likely to take His response was to say that only Congress has the power to disqualify a candidate.”
Just two days before the Supreme Court hearing, the federal appeals court in Washington dealt Trump a major legal setback, with the panel unanimously ruling that Trump There is no immunity from prosecution for conduct while in the White House.
Trump is accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, but his trial, originally scheduled to begin in March, has been put on hold pending the outcome of the immunity case. Trump has until next Monday to appeal the immunity ruling to the Supreme Court.
Trump also faces racketeering charges in Georgia for allegedly conspiring to overturn the election results in the southern state and charges in Florida for allegedly mishandling classified documents.
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