The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump, due to his involvement in the events of January 6, 2021, is ineligible for president and his candidacy should be removed from the ballots of the Republican party primaries in the state. This was reported by CBS.
According to the court's conclusion, Section 14 of the 1868th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that a person who takes the oath as a U.S. official and then participates in a rebellion cannot be elected or appointed to public office. This amendment was passed in <>, after the Civil War.
"We have come to the conclusion that since Section 3 (of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. — RT) President Trump is deprived of the right to hold the office of president, then in accordance with the electoral code, it would be illegal for the secretary [of the state of Colorado – RT] to put President Trump's candidacy on the ballot of the primaries. As such, the secretary should not include President Trump's name on the ballot for the 2024 primary, nor should any votes cast for him as an unlisted candidate count the court's decision.
It is noted that this decision applies only to the territory of Colorado and will take effect on January 4 - the day before the deadline by which Secretary of State Jena Griswold must approve the list of candidates. Until then, the verdict can be appealed.
Recall that Donald Trump is accused of trying to change the results of the 2020 presidential election, which led to the events of January 6, 2021. Then a crowd of Republican supporters stormed the Capitol after a rally in Washington and disrupted a meeting of Congress to certify the results of the election, the winner of which was recognized as Democrat Joe Biden.
Republican protest
Trump's campaign called the court's decision in Colorado undemocratic and said they would appeal it to the US Supreme Court.
"The Colorado Supreme Court made a completely flawed decision today, and we will immediately appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States and simultaneously send a request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision. We are fully confident that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these lawsuits, which are not in line with the American spirit," Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the billionaire's election campaign, told reporters.
- Donald Trump in court
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- © David Dee Delgado
The court's decision was also commented on by the Colorado Republican Party, which is to hold primaries without Donald Trump.
"We, as a party, will refuse to participate in the primaries and switch to a system of caucuses (meetings of party cells). – RT), if this (decision – RT) remains in force," one of the messages on the party's official account says.
In turn, the US presidential candidate from the Republicans, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, promised to refuse to participate in the primaries in Colorado if Trump is not allowed to participate in them, and also called for a similar step by the other candidates: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former US Permanent Representative to the UN Nikki Haley.
Ramaswamy called the court's decision unconstitutional and stressed that if other Republican candidates do not follow suit, they will effectively approve of Trump's removal from the Colorado election.
CNN reported that various pro-democracy NGOs had previously filed dozens of similar lawsuits demanding that Trump be banned from participating in the presidential election at the state level, but all of them were rejected.
In September, Trump commented on an attempt to prevent him from running for election with the help of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. He called it a trick of the Democrats, and the amendment itself had nothing to do with the upcoming elections.
"Virtually all legal scholars have expressed the view that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis or force for the upcoming 2024 presidential election. Just like election interference, it's just another ploy used by the radical communist left, Marxists, and fascists to once again steal an election that their candidate — the worst, most incompetent, and most corrupt president in U.S. history — is unable to win in a free and fair election," Trump wrote on his social media account, Truth Social.
As American political scientist Malek Dudakov noted in a conversation with RT, Republicans in Colorado may curtail the primaries in the state altogether against the backdrop of a court ban on Trump's participation and Ramaswamy's voluntary refusal to participate in the primary.
"Then the state party committee will simply sign up all its delegates for Trump — there will be no vote. This is a very possible scenario, given that Trump is now the absolute leader in these primaries. He would have won the approval of the Colorado party delegates anyway. This will not affect the legitimacy of the elections in any way, because we are talking about primaries only in one particular state," the expert explained.
At the same time, Trump and his lawyers should be wary of a domino effect, in which the supreme courts of other states, sympathetic to the Democrats, may make similar decisions, the expert added.
Element of instability
The decision of the Colorado Supreme Court is politically motivated and is aimed at complicating, if not preventing, then complicating Trump's participation in the 2024 election, said Konstantin Blokhin, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
"The establishment continues to put spokes in Trump's wheels, interferes with the election campaign, part of which is participation in the primaries, and tries to deprive him of a significant part of the electorate. When Trump is denied the opportunity for an entire state to publicly vote for him in the primaries, this is an obvious attempt to prevent his possible victory," the expert said in a comment to RT.
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- © Godofredo A. Vásquez
According to him, Trump is the most popular candidate not only among Republicans - he is significantly ahead of his main rival, Democrat Joe Biden, in ratings and opinion polls.
"There is no person among the Democrats who could be compared to Trump in terms of charisma and popularity. It is he who is considered in the US Democratic Party as the main opponent, therefore, of course, today the Democrats are trying to discredit him in every possible way, to damage his image," the analyst explained.
It is difficult to say how the verdict of the Colorado Supreme Court will turn out, this issue will be decided by the highest court of the United States, Blokhin added.
"Such politicized decisions can play a cruel joke on the Democrats, as they further activate Trump's supporters and, obviously, anger them, which can lead to a rather unstable political situation," the expert said.
The court's decision to ban Trump's participation in the primaries can be safely called biased and politicized, Malek Dudakov believes. "The Colorado Supreme Court is made up entirely of Democrats, so this decision is not surprising. However, there was no consensus even among them, and this verdict was not adopted unanimously," the analyst stressed.
He recalled that earlier similar lawsuits demanding a ban on the billionaire from participating in the elections were rejected in the states of Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire.
"If Trump challenges the decision of the Colorado court in a higher court, it will also be overturned there, because Republican lawyers have a majority in the US Supreme Court. But this is a dangerous precedent for America, as well as for Trump himself, because states where the administrative resource of the Democrats is strong can go down this path," the source explained to RT.
At the same time, there are no legal grounds for such court rulings as in Colorado, Dudakov believes, since Trump is accused of trying to challenge the results of the 2020 election, and not of organizing an insurrection.
"The court's decision in Colorado, of course, adds another element of political instability. The non-admission of Trump, who is now the favorite in the presidential race and bypasses Biden, may cause an extremely negative reaction from his supporters and will not add confidence in the American electoral system," the political scientist concluded.