The Supreme Court must now deal with Trump's involvement in the storming of the Capitol. The ex-president is appealing his disqualification from voting in Colorado.
Washington DC – Former US President had thousands Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, incited people to storm the Capitol. Now the US Supreme Court will have to deal with whether Trump will therefore no longer be able to take part in the 2024 US election against the Democratic incumbent Joe Biden may compete. In December, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump should be barred from the state's Republican primary for “incitement of insurrection” against the US government. Now Trump's lawyers are appealing to the Supreme Court filed in Washington.
The plaintiff organization “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics” in Washington (CREW) claims to represent several Republican and independent voters. They argue that the so-called ban on insurrection in the 14th Amendment prohibits Trump from holding higher office in the state. The norm prohibits holding public office if one has previously participated as a public official in an uprising against the state. Although the passage mentions some examples of such higher offices, the office of president is not explicitly mentioned. In the states of Colorado and Maine, plaintiffs were successful in court with this view. They initially failed in Minnesota and Michigan.
Trump's campaign cites “act of election interference” in Colorado court
With the application to the US Supreme Court, Trump's team wants to overturn the decision of the highest court in Colorado. It was an “un-American, unconstitutional act of election interference,” the statement said. The court ruled in December that Trump was unfit to be president and therefore could not take part in the state's primary. Trump had also previously appealed against a similar decision by the top election supervisor in Maine, but initially in a lower court.
According to US media, Trump's lawyers are now arguing before the Supreme Court that the court in Colorado has exceeded its authority – the question of a president's suitability is a matter for the US Congress and not for state courts. The constitutional amendment that the plaintiffs rely on is not applicable in Trump's case. In addition, Trump's lawyers argue that the 14th Amendment would only prohibit “holding” office, but not being elected to it. Their core argument here is that Congress could theoretically repeal a ban on holding office with a qualified two-thirds majority. The New York Times (NYT) published the written statement verbatim.
More powerful than ever before “Federalist Society” – Trump’s chief lawyer is a member of the right-wing legal clique
However, given the narrow majorities in both chambers of parliament, this seems more than unlikely. In his opinion, Trump's chief lawyer David Warrington is entirely on the Republican line. According to his law firm's website, he is a member of the Federalist Society. In legal theory, this stands for so-called originalism, an absolutely literal interpretation of the US Constitution. The ultra-conservative majority of the six conservative justices on the US Supreme Court consists exclusively of members of the Federalist Society.
Since 2019, thanks to Donald Trump as US President, the Federalist Society has been “more powerful than ever before,” wrote the Washington Post. The literal interpretation of a document that is over 200 years old naturally brings with it the image of society from that time to a large extent.
Time is of the essence: Iowa primaries on January 15th
The Republican primary begins on January 15th with the first vote in the state of Iowa. The Republican primaries in Colorado and Maine take place on March 5th, the so-called Super Tuesday, when voting takes place in a number of US states. However, the ballot papers are printed some time in advance. Trump wants to run for the Republicans again in November, and in polls he is far ahead of the field of Republican candidates so far.
In addition to the legal dispute over his participation in the primaries, Trump also faces several major court proceedings in the coming months on various criminal charges – including the storming of the Capitol and his attempts to retroactively overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. At that time, five people were killed and 450 insurgents raised their voices NYT already sentenced to prison terms. (kb with dpa)
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