Donald Trump Disqualified From 2024 Ballot
An appeals court in Colorado on Tuesday ruled Donald Trump cannot appear on the state’s presidential primary ballot because of his involvement in the attack on the Capitol in January 2021.
The remarkable judicial ruling, challenged for appeal by Trump’s campaign right away, has the potential to disrupt the upcoming 2024 presidential election, where the ex-reality TV personality currently holds a strong lead as the preferred nominee for the Republican Party.
“A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the Supreme Court of the State of Colorado wrote.
“Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.”
The decision follows a dispute by a set of voters against a prior decision stating that despite Trump’s evident role in the January 6 riot, it wouldn’t prevent his candidacy for the presidency in the future.
That ruling hinged on the interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution that bars someone from holding “any office… under the United States” if they engaged in insurrection after taking an oath as “an officer of the United States” to support the Constitution.
The lower court stated that the amendment doesn’t extend to Trump because the presidency isn’t included among the federal elected positions that are impacted by it.
Noah Bookbinder of campaign group Citizens for Ethics, which brought the case, took to social media to hail the ruling, calling it “a huge moment for democracy.”
The court temporarily paused its decision, expecting an appeal to the US Supreme Court, a move that Trump’s campaign promptly declared it would pursue.
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“We will swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
Cheung said the “all-Democrat appointed” panel was doing the bidding of a “(George) Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden.”
“Democrat Party leaders are in a state of paranoia over the growing, dominant lead President Trump has amassed in the polls.
“They have lost faith in the failed Biden presidency and are now doing everything they can to stop the American voters from throwing them out of office next November.”
The groundbreaking charges against Trump, accusing him of orchestrating a criminal scheme to manipulate the 2020 election, both on a federal scale and in Georgia, have sparked a heated legal discussion about whether he can hold office in the future.
The legal action in Colorado is just one of several lawsuits based on the 14th Amendment filed against Trump that are ongoing in different parts of the country. Recently, Minnesota’s highest court dismissed a comparable case last month.
Donald Trump Disqualified From 2024 Ballot