World

Colorado Supreme Court Declares Trump Ineligible to Contest 2024 Election

Published

1 year ago

December 20, 2023

Eric

A divided Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday declared former President Donald Trump ineligible for the White House under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause and removed him from the state’s presidential primary ballot, setting up a likely showdown in the nation’s highest court to decide whether the front-runner for the GOP nomination can remain in the race.

The decision from a court whose justices were all appointed by Democratic governors marks the first time in history that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment has been used to disqualify a presidential candidate.

“A majority of the court holds that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” the court wrote in its 4-3 decision.

Colorado’s highest court overturned a ruling from a district court judge who found that Trump incited an insurrection for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but said he could not be barred from the ballot because it was unclear that the provision was intended to cover the presidency.

The court stayed its decision until Jan. 4, or until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the case. Colorado officials say the issue must be settled by Jan. 5, the deadline for the state to print its presidential primary ballots.

“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” wrote the court’s majority. “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”

Trump’s attorneys had promised to appeal any disqualification immediately to the nation’s highest court, which has the final say about constitutional matters.

Trump’s legal spokeswoman Alina Habba said in a statement Tuesday night: “This ruling, issued by the Colorado Supreme Court, attacks the very heart of this nation’s democracy. It will not stand, and we trust that the Supreme Court will reverse this unconstitutional order.”

Trump didn’t mention the decision during a rally Tuesday evening in Waterloo, Iowa, but his campaign sent out a fundraising email citing what it called a “tyrannical ruling.”

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel labeled the decision “Election interference” and said the RNC’s legal team intends to help Trump fight the ruling.

Trump lost Colorado by 13 percentage points in 2020 and doesn’t need the state to win next year’s presidential election. But the danger for the former president is that more courts and election officials will follow Colorado’s lead and exclude Trump from must-win states.

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed nationally to disqualify Trump under Section 3, which was designed to keep former Confederates from returning to government after the Civil War. It bars from office anyone who swore an oath to “support” the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against it, and has been used only a handful of times since the decade after the Civil War.

“I think it may embolden other state courts or secretaries to act now that the bandage has been ripped off,” Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor who has closely followed the Section 3 cases, said after Tuesday’s ruling. “This is a major threat to Trump’s candidacy.”

The Colorado case is the first where the plaintiffs succeeded. After a weeklong hearing in November, District Judge Sarah B. Wallace found that Trump indeed had “engaged in insurrection” by inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and her ruling that kept him on the ballot was a fairly technical one.

Trump’s attorneys convinced Wallace that, because the language in Section 3 refers to “officers of the United States” who take an oath to “support” the Constitution, it must not apply to the president, who is not included as an “officer of the United States” elsewhere in the document and whose oath is to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution.

The provision also says offices covered include senator, representative, electors of the president and vice president, and all others “under the United States,” but doesn’t name the presidency.

The state’s highest court didn’t agree, siding with attorneys for six Colorado Republican and unaffiliated voters who argued that it was nonsensical to imagine that the framers of the amendment, fearful of former confederates returning to power, would bar them from low-level offices but not the highest one in the land.

“President Trump asks us to hold that Section 3 disqualifies every oathbreaking insurrectionist except the most powerful one and that it bars oath-breakers from virtually every office, both state and federal, except the highest one in the land,” the court’s majority opinion said. “Both results are inconsistent with the plain language and history of Section 3.”

The left-leaning group that brought the Colorado case, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, hailed the ruling.

“Our Constitution clearly states that those who violate their oath by attacking our democracy are barred from serving in government,” its president, Noah Bookbinder, said in a statement.

Trump’s attorneys also had urged the Colorado high court to reverse Wallace’s ruling that Trump incited the Jan. 6 attack. His lawyers argued the then-president had simply been using his free speech rights and hadn’t called for violence. Trump attorney Scott Gessler also argued the attack was more of a “riot” than an insurrection.

That met skepticism from several of the justices.

“Why isn’t it enough that a violent mob breached the Capitol when Congress was performing a core constitutional function?” Justice William W. Hood III said during the Dec. 6 arguments. “In some ways, that seems like a poster child for insurrection.”

In the ruling issued Tuesday, the court’s majority dismissed the arguments that Trump wasn’t responsible for his supporters’ violent attack, which was intended to halt Congress’ certification of the presidential vote: “President Trump then gave a speech in which he literally exhorted his supporters to fight at the Capitol,” they wrote.

Colorado Supreme Court Justices Richard L. Gabriel, Melissa Hart, Monica Márquez and Hood ruled for the petitioners. Chief Justice Brian D. Boatright dissented, arguing the constitutional questions were too complex to be solved in a state hearing. Justices Maria E. Berkenkotter and Carlos Samour also dissented.

“Our government cannot deprive someone of the right to hold public office without due process of law,” Samour wrote in his dissent. “Even if we are convinced that a candidate committed horrible acts in the past — dare I say, engaged in insurrection — there must be procedural due process before we can declare that individual disqualified from holding public office.”

The Colorado ruling stands in contrast with the Minnesota Supreme Court, which last month decided that the state party can put anyone it wants on its primary ballot. It dismissed a Section 3 lawsuit but said the plaintiffs could try again during the general election.

Source: apnews.com

USA

Trump Insists on Mass Deportation, Unveils Early Agenda

Published

2 weeks ago

December 11, 2024

Eric

The President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, has vowed to make good on his election promises of mass deportations and new tariffs in his first television interview since his re-election.

Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Trump reiterated his intention to deport every person who had entered the US without authorisation.

“I think you have to do it, and it’s a very tough thing to do, but you have rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally,” Trump said.

“You know, the people who have been treated unfairly are the people who have been waiting on line for 10 years to come into the country.”

Trump said he was willing to work with Democrats to keep so-called “Dreamers”– undocumented people who came to the US as children and have lived in the US most of their lives – in the country but also suggested that US citizens could be deported along with their undocumented family members.

“I don’t want to be breaking up families,” Trump said. “So the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”

Trump also reiterated his intention to end birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.

Amending the Constitution is a lengthy and difficult process involving Congress and all 50 states, but Trump said he was exploring options including an “executive action” to end what he called a “ridiculous” right.

“I’m looking to make our country great. I’m looking to bring down prices because I won on two things… I won on the border, and I won on groceries,” he said.

Trump said that while he “can’t guarantee” that his plan to impose tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico would not push up prices, tariffs would ultimately help the US economy.

“I’m a big believer in tariffs. Tariffs are beautiful. They’re going to make us rich,” he said.

“Why are we subsidising these countries? If we’re going to subsidise them, let them become a State.”

During the interview, Trump also discussed plans to pull back on US support for Ukraine and said Kyiv should “probably” prepare for less aid.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Washington has approved nearly $183bn in military, humanitarian and other assistance to Ukraine, according to US government data.

Outgoing President Joe Biden has pledged a further $988m in aid and an additional $925m before he leaves office on January 20.

The Republican said he was “actively” trying to end the war in Ukraine but would not confirm how recently he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has spoken about with admiration in the past.

“I don’t want to say anything that could impede the negotiation,” he said.

Trump said that the US would only remain in NATO if members “pay their bills” and if its majority European members “treat the US fairly” by expanding bilateral trade.

The president-elect also said that if he had remained in the White House after the 2020 election, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza would have never happened.

Trump and many of his supporters claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” by Biden and the Democrats.

Anger over the election results later led Trump supporters to storm the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021, in a failed bid to overturn the vote.

During his interview, Trump said he would consider pardoning the 944 people who received criminal sentences for their role in the uprising.

Among them, 562 had been sentenced to prison time as of August, according to the US Justice Department.

“I’m going to look at everything. We’ll look at individual cases, but I’m going to be acting very quickly… the first day,” Trump said.

“These people have been in prison three to four years, and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”

Trump said that lawmakers who took part in a Congressional investigation into the events of January 6 should go to prison, although he stopped short of saying he would direct the FBI to investigate.

Trump also said he would not stop his chosen FBI director, Kash Patel, from investigating the so-called “deep state”.

“If they think that somebody was dishonest or crooked or a corrupt politician, I think he probably has an obligation to do so,” Trump said.

Trump sidestepped questions about whether he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden, although he separately accused the outgoing president of weaponising the justice system against him.

“I’m looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success,” Trump said.