Colorado removed Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot. CNN claimed: “In a stunning and unprecedented decision, the Colorado Supreme Court removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot, ruling that he isn’t an eligible presidential candidate because of the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”
“The ruling was 4-3.
“The ruling will be placed on hold until January 4, pending Trump’s appeal to the US Supreme Court, which could settle the matter for the nation.”
Lawsuits challenging Trump’s candidacy have been filed in more than 25 states ahead of the 2024 election, though the Colorado case brought on behalf of six voters marks the most immediate threat to his campaign.
The Original Case
Judge Sara Wallace, a radical anti-Trump critic, presided over the original case in November.
The Denver judge ruled on Friday that Donald Trump can still run for president in 2024 even if he had participated in an “insurrection” since section three of the 14th Amendment does not apply to the president. So, he does not qualify for removal.
“To be clear, part of the Court’s decision is its reluctance to embrace an interpretation which would disqualify a presidential candidate without a clear, unmistakable indication that such is the intent,” she wrote in a Nov. 17 order.
However, she did find that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection. As a result, the State Supreme Court agreed to hear the case to remove him from the 2024 ballot. All seven of the judges on the state court were appointed by Democrat governors.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed the lawsuit in September on behalf of six Republican and unaffiliated voters in Colorado including former federal, state, and local officials. The group alleged that Trump violated the oath of office by “recruiting, inciting, and encouraging a violent mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a futile attempt to remain in office.”
CREW is a partially Soros-funded leftist organization. All big donors are leftists.
This is strictly lawfare.
The Ruling
Is it really stunning and unprecedented, as CNN writes, given the Democrats involved in the decision? How can they conclude that he incited an insurrection when neither he nor anyone was convicted of insurrection?
The deadline to resolve the case is January 5th, when the list of GOP candidates must be set.
“President Trump did not merely incite the insurrection,” the majority wrote in its unsigned opinion. “Even when the siege on the Capitol was fully underway, he continued to support it by repeatedly demanding that Vice President (Mike) Pence refuse to perform his constitutional duty and by calling Senators to persuade them to stop the counting of electoral votes. These actions constituted overt, voluntary, and direct participation in the insurrection.”
“We conclude that the foregoing evidence, the great bulk of which was undisputed at trial, established that President Trump engaged in insurrection,” the opinion adds. “President Trump’s direct and express efforts, over several months, exhorting his supporters to march to the Capitol to prevent what he falsely characterized as an alleged fraud on the people of this country were indisputably overt and voluntary.”
In addition, the court rejected Trump’s free speech claims, writing: “President Trump’s speech on January 6 was not protected by the First Amendment.”
Democrats don’t believe in the First Amendment for Republicans.
MR. TRUMP’S RESPONSE
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