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Lawyers for former President Donald Trump have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court late last month removing him from that state’s 2024 primary and presidential ballots under the “insurrection” clause of the 14th Amendment.
“In our system of ‘government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,’ Colorado’s ruling is not and cannot be correct,” attorneys for the former president wrote in the filing with the court obtained by CNN.
CNN reported that the nation’s highest court “is facing mounting pressure to settle the question of whether Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, can be disqualified from holding public office, as state courts and election officials have come to differing conclusions across the country. The first contests of the 2024 primary begin in weeks.”
The outlet noted further:
The high court is separately involved in other matters that could impact the federal criminal case against the former president.
Trump’s appeal comes nearly a week after the Colorado GOP, which is also a party in the case, filed a separate appeal, and two weeks after the Colorado ruling came down. The ruling has been put on hold while appeals play out and Colorado’s top election official has already made clear that Trump’s name will be included on the state’s primary ballot when it’s certified on January 5 – unless the US Supreme Court says otherwise.
Meanwhile, Fox News reported that Republicans are lining up behind Trump, calling the decision by the Colorado court wrong and unprecedented.
“Even if the Colorado Supreme Court were correct that President Trump cannot take office on Inauguration Day, that court had no basis to hold that he cannot run for office,” The National Republican Senatorial Committee, chaired by Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said in a filing with the Supreme Court.
Fox added:
Last month, the Colorado Supreme Court, in a 4-3 vote, overturned a lower court ruling that allowed Trump to appear on the ballot as a presidential candidate. In their opinion, the justices on the state’s high court wrote that Trump “incited and encouraged” the use of violence to prevent the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021, when many of his followers stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Since then, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has also removed Trump from that state’s ballot, citing the Colorado ruling.
Trump’s legal team, in its filing, cited Colorado Justice Carlos Samour.
“The decision to bar former President Donald J. Trump — by all accounts the current leading Republican presidential candidate (and reportedly the current leading overall presidential candidate) — from Colorado’s presidential primary ballot flies in the face of the due process doctrine,” 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,” he added.
Meanwhile, a federal judge gave Trump and two others some good news on Tuesday in their civil lawsuit about the death of U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick on January 6, 2021, right at the Capitol Building.
In a 12-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, dismissed three of five civil counts in a lawsuit filed a year ago by Sicknick’s girlfriend, Sandra Garza. Her suit sought damages from Trump and Jan. 6 rioters Julian Khater and George Tanios for wrongful death, a conspiracy to violate civil rights, and negligence per se based on an anti-riot law in D.C.
In his ruling, Mehta dismissed the wrongful death act count and both negligence per se allegations, Fox News reported.
The outlet noted further: “While Mehta dismissed the wrongful death and negligence civil counts against Trump, Garza’s claims against the defendants under D.C.’s Survival Act and the conspiracy to violate a civil rights claim will proceed. The Survival Act allows an individual’s legal representative to pursue legal action on their behalf after their death.”
