2023-12-20 10:24:21
By four votes in favor and three against, the Supreme Court of Colorado (USA) this Tuesday excluded the former US president Donald Trump of the presidential primaries ahead of the 2024 White House elections. Relying on the Fourteenth Amendment — which prohibits anyone who has sworn an oath to the Constitution and participated in an insurrection from holding public office again — they consider that Trump is not an eligible presidential candidate. due to his role in the assault on the Capitol.
The ruling, however, is suspended until January 4, one day before the deadline for certification of the state’s primaries, pending an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Will it affect Trump’s entire presidential campaign?
This decision applies, in principle, only in the state of Colorado, but Could affect Trump’s 2024 presidential campaignin which he starts as a favorite of the Republican Party and despite the different court dates he has scheduled.
It should be noted that this is the first time that a court has determined that a president cannot stand for election due to his conduct.
“Because he is disqualified, it would be an unlawful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to include him as a candidate in the presidential primary,” the court said, pointing to the “insurrectionary prohibition” of the federal Constitution. and have concluded that this measure applies to the Presidency. In this way, the ruling overturns a previous ruling by a lower court that indicated that the “insurrectional prohibition” of the Constitution did not include the Presidency, an argument that Judge Sarah Wallace of the Denver (Colorado) district court used to reject the disqualification. of Trump.
Colorado Secretary of State Jenna Griswold has disagreed with the rulings of the three dissenting Supreme Court justices and has promised to follow the state court’s ruling and only qualified candidates will appear on the ballot. Trump “incited the insurrection and it is up to a court to determine whether that disqualifies him from further holding office under the Constitution,” she said.
The assault on the Capitol was an insurrection
The judges of the Colorado Supreme Court have indicated that the attack of January 6, 2021 to the United States Capitol was an insurrection, that Trump “got involved” in it and that the former president’s speech “inciting the crowd“that day “was not protected by the First Amendment.”
Once determined that Trump participated in an insurrection, the Colorado court has said there is “substantial evidence” that the former president was “laying the groundwork for a claim that the election was rigged” before the November presidential race. The former leader “continued to fan the flames of his supporters’ anger, which he himself had ignited” by making false claims about the integrity of the election.
Appeal to the Supreme Court
Trump’s campaign team “quickly file an appeal before the country’s Supreme Court and “a simultaneous request to suspend this deeply undemocratic decision.” “We have every confidence that the Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and put an end to these anti-American lawsuits,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said.
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In Trump’s opinion it is “a sad day” for the country, insulting the special prosecutor of the case, Jack Smith, whom he defines as “seedy”, and which he says has been placed “to tarnish” his “reputation for electoral purposes.” Trump continues to deny allegations that he intervened in the assault on the Capitol and considers the Fourteenth Amendment demands an abuse of legal process.
For his part, the Trumpist Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representativeshas said that the ruling is “nothing more than a barely simulated partisan attack” and has shown his confidence in the Supreme Court to “put aside this reckless decision and allow the American people to decide who will be the next president.”
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