The Supreme Court of Colorado declared, Tuesday, December 19, Donald Trump ineligible for the 2024 US presidential election due to his role in the attack on the Capitol in Washington in early 2021. It ordered the withdrawal of ballots in his name for the Republican primaries in this state, which must take place on March 5, 2024.
By a majority of four out of seven justices, the Supreme Court upheld a November ruling by a district judge who concluded that Mr. Trump had “delivered to a rebellion on January 6, 2021” during the assault on the Capitol, but on the other hand considered that on the 14e amendment of the Constitution, invoked to claim his ineligibility, applied to a president, which was not the case in the first instance judgment. On January 6, 2021, hundreds of white-hot Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, the sanctuary of American democracy, to try to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
The Colorado Supreme Court, however, suspended its decision until January 4, the deadline for the certification of primary ballots in Colorado, in the event of an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States before then.
“Undemocratic” decision, according to Trump spokesperson
The decision of this Court, whose judges were all appointed by Democratic governors, marks the first time in the history of the United States that Article 3 of the 14e Amendment of the Constitution is used to disqualify a presidential candidate.
“The Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision this evening and we will quickly go to the United States Supreme Court and seek a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision”Donald Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
“We do not reach these conclusions lightly”wrote the Colorado Court. “We are aware of the scale and weight of the questions asked of us. We are also conscious of our solemn duty to enforce the law, without fear or favor, and without being influenced by public reaction to the decisions that the law requires us to make.she adds.
Dozens of actions filed
Donald Trump lost the state of Colorado by 13 percentage points in 2020 and does not need the state to win next year’s presidential election. But the risk for the former president is that other courts and election officials will follow Colorado’s lead and exclude him from states where he absolutely must win.
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed nationally to disqualify the Republican candidate under Article 3. This amendment passed in 1868, at the time targeting supporters of the Southern Confederacy defeated in the Civil War (1861-1865), excludes from any public responsibility anyone, after having taken an oath to defend the Constitution, who would have engaged in acts of“insurrection” or “rebellion”.
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“Mr. Trump acted with the specific intent of inciting political violence and directing it toward the Capitol in an effort to prevent certification of the election” of his Democratic opponent Joe Biden, said trial judge Sarah Wallace in her decision on November 17. On the other hand, she considered that the 14e constitutional amendment, invoked by the petitioners, the anti-corruption citizens group Crew, did not apply to the president, although they acknowledged the existence of doubts on this point.
” We won ! » reacted Crew on Xgreeting “a great moment for democracy”.
The historic indictment of the ex-president on 1er August at the federal level then on August 14 by the State of Georgia (South-East) for its allegedly illicit attempts to obtain the reversal of the results of the 2020 election opened a legal debate on its possible ineligibility.