Photo: AP Photo/Alex BrandonDonald Trump is the first presidential candidate in American history to be declared ineligible for the presidency under a rarely used provision of the US Constitution
The Supreme Court of Colorado has declared former President Donald Trump ineligible for the White House and ruled that he cannot be on the ballot in that American state in next year's election due to his role in the attack by his supporters on the US Congress on January 6, 2021.
Trump is the first presidential candidate in American history to be declared ineligible for the presidency under a rarely used provision of the US Constitution that bars officials who have participated in "insurrection" from holding public office.
The ruling only applies to the March 5 Republican primary, but is likely to affect Trump's standing in the November 5 presidential election.
"The majority of the court declares that Trump is disqualified from the office of president under Clause 3 of the 14th Amendment," said the court's decision supported by four judges, while three dissented.
The Supreme Court is waiting
This leads to a likely showdown of lawyers at the US Supreme Court who will have to decide whether Trump, as the front-runner for the Republican nomination, can stay in the race.
The decision of the court, all judges of which were appointed by democratic governors, is the first in history in which Section 3.14. amendment to the US Constitution used to disqualify a presidential candidate.
Colorado's highest court decided so, overturning the ruling of a district court judge who, although he found that Trump incited insurrection with his role in the attack on the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021, said that he could not be banned from participating in the election because it is unclear whether the provision of the US Constitution also applies to the president.
"We did not reach our decision lightly," the Colorado Supreme Court justices wrote.
"We are aware of the magnitude and weight of the issues before us. "We are also aware of our solemn duty to apply the law without fear or favor and regardless of its impact on the public's reaction to the decisions the law requires us to make," the judges noted.
Announced appeal
Trump's lawyers have vowed to immediately appeal to the US Supreme Court, which has the final say on constitutional matters. The Trump campaign also said it was working on a response to the ruling.
Photo: APIn 2020, Trump lost in Colorado by 13 percentage points, and he would not need that state to win the presidential election next year, in 2024.
But the danger for the former president is that a series of US state courts and election officials will follow Colorado's lead and exclude Trump from the race in states he would need to win to become US president again.
Colorado officials say the issue must be resolved by Jan. 5, the deadline for the state to print its ballots for the November presidential election.
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed in the US to disqualify Trump under Section 3 of the US Constitution, which was designed to prevent former Confederate officials from returning to power after the American Civil War (1861-1865). The section barred from office anyone who had sworn to support the Constitution and then "engaged in rebellion against it," and was used only a few times in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.
The first case
The Colorado case is the first in which prosecutors have succeeded. After a week-long hearing in November, District Judge Sarah B. Wallace found that Trump had indeed "engaged in sedition" by calling for an attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and her decision to allow the November vote on Trump was a technicality.
Trump's lawyers convinced Judge Wallace that because the wording in Section 3 of the US Constitution refers to "officers of the United States" who swear to "uphold" the Constitution against which they then rebel, it must not apply to the unmentioned president elsewhere in the Constitution as "an officer of the United States" and whose oath is to "preserve, protect, and defend" the Constitution.
That provision also says that the offices covered include senator, representative, electors of the president and vice president, and all others "under the United States," but does not specifically mention the president himself.
Colorado's highest state court disagreed, siding with lawyers for six Republican voters from Colorado and other voters who argued that it was absurd to imagine that the authors of that old constitutional amendment, fearing the return of former Confederate officials to power, prohibited them only access to lower positions, not access to the highest position in the state.
"It's like saying a rebel who took up arms and turned against the state can't be the sheriff of a county, but he can be the president," attorney Jason Murray told the court in early December.
BG/Voice of America
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