OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Kayleigh McEnany, a former White House press secretary in the Trump administration, tore into the Colorado Supreme Court over its recent decision.
The Colorado Supreme Court, which is made up entirely of justices nominated by Democrats, reached a groundbreaking and contentious ruling on Tuesday. The state’s highest court ruled 4-3 to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the state’s Republican primary election in 2024.
The decision has caused a great deal of controversy because it is based on the 14th Amendment’s Section 3, which bars people who have participated in an insurrection from running for federal office. Many believe the decision was politically motivated and set a dangerous precedent for American politics.
McEnany, who was guest hosting “The Ingraham Angle,” spoke with former Deputy Independent Counsel Sol Wisenberg about the left’s shameless attempt to delegitimize the Supreme Court.
Below is a transcript of the exchange:
McENANY: “Sol, I mean, you can’t even write in the guy’s name? What’s going on here? And the Supreme Court, what do you think is the trajectory to hopefully overturning this?”
WISENBERG: “Well, I think the Supreme Court is going to take the case, and I think they are going to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court fairly quickly.”
McENANY: “Fairly quickly. So do you think, you know, history serves, you have all of these 5-4 decisions, very narrow, do you think we could see a 9-0 reversal, some of those justices move over?”
WISENBERG: “I would certainly like to see that, Kayleigh. You know, they are going to have to look at a lot of things this term that relate to President Trump. I think they will take a look at presidential immunity in the context of criminal prosecutions. I think they may take a look at the gag order, and I think it’s very important that they try to decide this with as much unanimity as they can. And I think this will not be a particularly close decision. This section of the 14th Amendment that the Colorado Supreme Court utilized, the majority, is simply not self-executing in my view. That was the position of the then-chief justice of the United States, Salmon Chase, in 1869, less than one year after the 14th Amendment was ratified. I don’t see this as much—so much as an issue of election interference, though it is—as another example of Trump derangement syndrome, this time in the judiciary. And I point out—I say this not as a political supporter of President Trump; I have never politically supported President Trump, but these efforts are very, very disturbing, and they’re very anti-democratic.”
McENANY: “You know, I would love to know your theory on this, but I have heard other legal analysts say, and you know this, you know, I went to law school, textualism, you look at history and precedent, and a lot of folks say there is a reason the president isn’t listed in this section. They list all these other officeholders, but they don’t list the president. You read that with intention. By design, our founders thought about every single word. So do you think this Section 3 of the 14th Amendment even applies to a former president?”
WISENBERG: “You know, that’s very much disputed. I think there are good arguments on both sides. It’s certainly not clear to me that it does apply to the president, and then if it’s not clear, as you know, if the text isn’t clear, you get to go to history and structure and things like that. So some of these questions are close on this issue of what the clause means, but to me, the critical thing, which was discussed in one of the dissents, is that I believe it was Justice Samour who focused on Griffin and the fact that this is not self-executing. What that means is that Congress must put teeth into this section of the 14th Amendment. Congress must say, ‘Here is how we are going to enforce this disqualification clause.’ Now, they did that. They passed a criminal law. It is still on the books, 18 USC 2383. Jack Smith did not indict former President Trump for that. So that’s one critical thing. It’s not a self-executing portion of the 14th Amendment. And two, you have to provide due process. You have to provide due process to somebody you are going to take off the ballot. The process provided here was an absolute joke. President Trump’s people didn’t have the right to subpoena documents; they didn’t have the right to subpoena witnesses. There was not a fair trial in any sense of the word here.”
McENANY: “No. No due process, not self-executing. Fascinating analysis. Sol, thank you.”
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