The US Supreme Court views Trump's attempt to be disqualified from the election with skepticism

The US Supreme Court views Trump's attempt to be disqualified from the election with skepticism

The US Supreme Court views Trump's attempt to be disqualified from the election with skepticism

Justices of the US Supreme Court said that they would be willing to overturn the decision that barred Donald Trump from participating in the 2021 Capitol assault and prevent him from voting in Colorado.

On Thursday, February 8, 2024, Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump gives a speech at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

With courts on Thursday rejecting the judicial order to exclude the former president from voting in Colorado because to his involvement in the uprising during the 2021 Capitol assault, Donald Trump seems to be heading for a significant legal win before the US Supreme Court. shown that it was prepared to do so.

Nearly two hours of arguments were held by nine justices on Trump's appeal of a verdict made by Colorado's highest court on December 19 that disqualified him from the state's Republican primary on March 5 under the US Constitution's 14th Amendment since it was discovered that he had participated in the revolt.

The November 5 election is expected to be significantly impacted by the case's result. Trump, who skipped the debate, is a serious candidate to unseat Democratic President Joe Biden as the Republican nominee.

It is against the law for any "Officer of the United States" to hold public office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment if they have sworn "to support the Constitution of the United States" and subsequently "joins in a rebellion or uprising against the same, or aids Or gave rest to his enemies."

During the arguments, both conservative and liberal justices voiced worry about states adopting broad actions that may affect national presidential elections. Many of them questioned if Congress should first approve legislation to authorize it, as they thought about how states might legitimately apply the Section 3 disqualification wording against candidates.

Trump appoints three justices to the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, which numbers 6-3.

Jason Murray, the attorney for four Republican and two independent voters who had sued to keep Trump off the Colorado ballot, was informed by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts that other States would pursue their own disqualification procedures against the candidates if the court's ruling is upheld. Republican or Democratic candidates, respectively.

"A small number of states will ultimately determine who will win the presidency. It's a difficult conclusion," Roberts said.

In over twenty additional states, anti-Trump groups have attempted, mostly in vain, to have him removed from office due to his activities in connection with the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol. However, Maine has also prohibited Trump from casting a ballot; the ruling has been postponed until after the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling.

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan told Murray, "I think the question you must contend with is why a single state ought to select who becomes president of the United States." "The question to determine if a former president is unsuitable to be president again because of insurgency ... it feels very national to me."

Trump's nominee, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, focused on the effects on democracy of states being able to exclude candidates from running for office under Section 3.

Kavanaugh said to Murray, "Think about the people's right in selecting the candidates of their choice, let the people select, because your position has the effect of substantially disparaging voters."

Murray's response was direct and to the point: "We are in this situation because President Trump attempted to deny the right to vote to the 80 million Americans who supported him; the Constitution does not mandate that they be given another opportunity. Give it to them."

In an attempt to stop Congress from recognizing Biden's win in the 2020 election, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and assaulted law enforcement. Earlier, Trump delivered a fiery address to his fans, exhorting them to travel to the Capitol and "fight like hell." After that, he refused to halt the crowd for hours on end.

Following the American Civil War (1861–1865), in which Southern states that permitted the institution of slavery revolted against the US government, the 14th Amendment was passed.

Murray added, referring to representatives of seceding states, "the creators of Section 3 knew from painful experience that the people who had violently broken their oaths to the Constitution was liable to assume power again." "They can destroy our Constitution, so they can't be trusted." "Constitutional democracy about within."

Roberts questioned Trump's lawyer Jonathan Mitchell about the possibility of a candidate being disqualified by a state's top elections official if that candidate comes forward and claims to have taken the oath described in the clause and took part in the uprising.

According to Mitchell, "If the candidate is an acknowledged rebel, Section 3 still enables the candidate to run for office with the potential to win election to office – and then giveLet's see whether or not Congress removes that disability after the elections."

"I have faith in God."

Upon hearing the hearings, Trump said in Florida that he "thought our arguments were very, very strong." Trump said he doubted his disqualification and attempted to frame the issue as part of a larger Democratic plot to keep him off the ballot.

"I believe in our country whereas I believe in the Supreme Court," Trump said.

The last time the Supreme Court was as important to a presidential election was in 2000, when Republican George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore in the famous Bush v. Gore ruling.

The justices disagreed over how the Section 3 disqualification should be implemented in light of an 1869 ruling authored by Chief Justice Salmon Chase, who was then in charge of the lower court. Mitchell was told by Kavanaugh that the Chase decision, which determined that Section 3 required congressional legislation to be enforced, was "highly prescient" in terms of what Section 3 meant.

The justices hardly spoke on what happened on January 6 or Trump's involvement in it, while progressive Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned Mitchell about whether the incident constituted an uprising.

"You are saying that an unstructured attempt to overthrow the government is not rebellion?" Jackson enquired.

"It was a riot," Mitchell said to Jackson. It wasn't a rebellion." "Despite being violent, criminal, and shameful, the events did not meet the criteria for rebellion as defined in Section 3."