The following is a news analysis.
It wasn’t even close.
Today’s 9-0 Supreme Court ruling in favor of Donald Trump, and against Colorado (and other states who may wish to remove him from the election ballot) seems to indicate there likely wasn’t any legitimate argument to make behind the obviously political move.
With the defeat, anti-Trump forces pressing a multi-front “lawfare” attack were dealt a major smackdown.
Similar suits had been filed in many states. Although propagandists wished to make is appear as though they were organically driven efforts, they were organized, executed, and/or promoted by left-leaning activist groups who appear desperate to keep the American electorate from having the opportunity to vote for the candidates of their choice.
The lawsuit claimed that Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits Trump from becoming President again. A Colorado court agreed. However, the Supreme Court determined that “Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.”
The complaint against Trump relied on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 3 provides:
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Con- gress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State leg- islature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
After a five-day trial, the Colorado District Court originally found that former President Trump had “engaged in insurrection” regarding the January 6, 2021 pro-Trump rally and rioting at the US Capitol even though Trump has never been charged with insurrection. In fact, none of the defendants in the heavily-prosecuted case have been charged with insurrection.
According to the Supreme Court decision today:
“We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal of- fices, especially the Presidency…Because federal officers ‘owe their existence and functions to the united voice of the whole, not of a portion, of the people,’ powers over their election and qualifications must be specifically ‘dele-gated to, rather than reserved by, the States.'”
The decision is an embarrassing defeat of activists such as Ron Fein of the radical left wing group “Free Speech for the People.” In a statement today, Fein called the Supreme Court decision a “mockery.”
Above: Ron Fein suffers humiliating 9-0 defeat in his lawfare attempt against Donald Trump.
Read the decision at the link below.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf
Read the statement by Free Speech for the People regarding its loss below.
The U.S. Supreme Court today has made a mockery of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Supreme Court has ruled that–despite inciting and facilitating a violent insurrection that defeated federal law enforcement, conquered the seat of our national government, nearly assassinated the vice president and key congressional leaders, and blocked Congress from certifying his electoral defeat, thus disrupting the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in our nation’s history–the disgraced ex-president Donald Trump can run for office again because this critical provision of the Constitution, designed to prevent exactly this situation, cannot be enforced.
Under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, “No person shall . . . hold any office, civil or military, under the United States. . . who, having previously taken an oath, . . . as an officer of the United States. . ., to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” Every court and state official that has addressed that issue — in Colorado, Maine, and Illinois — concluded that Trump engaged in insurrection and is disqualified from the presidency.
The Supreme Court did not deny that Trump engaged in insurrection; indeed, during a nearly three hour oral argument on February 8, 2024, neither Trump’s lawyer nor any of the Justices seriously disputed that conclusion. Instead, the Court ruled that states’ power to appoint presidential electors–which the Court has previously described as “far-reaching” and “plenary”–does not allow them to apply this critical provision of the Constitution to presidential candidates. As of today, states can exclude a presidential candidate from the ballot because he did not submit the proper paperwork with the proper number of verified signatures, but not because he fomented a bloody insurrection against the U.S. Constitution.
This decision is disgraceful,” said Ron Fein, Legal Director of Free Speech For People, which pioneered the first litigation under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment and co-led the successful Illinois challenge. “The Supreme Court couldn’t exonerate Trump because the evidence of his guilt was overwhelming, so instead the Justices neutered our Constitution’s built-in defense against insurrectionists and said the facts don’t matter.
This dangerous ruling encourages Trump–and those who follow his example–to engage in more insurrections and disregard more broadly the Constitution. As one Senator explained in 1866 when advocating for Section 3, “the man who has once violated his oath will be more liable to violate his fealty to the Government in the future.” The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment learned this lesson in blood, and gave us Section 3 to prevent a repeat. With today’s ruling, the Supreme Court has utterly failed in its duty to uphold this constitutional mandate at this critical moment in history.
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Predictably, the left is claiming that the Court’s decision to prevent a handful of rabidly partisan officials from removing the opposition party’s candidate from the ballot is a threat to . . . [drum roll] . . . “democracy.” For the left, one of their own partisans should have the right to effectively cancel the votes of millions of people.
Ron Fein is an embarrassment and anyone with the gaul to seriously maintain that there even was an insurrection needs some kind of cognitive therapy. I’m embarrassed to be in a country that harbours such absurd, vicious and dishonest partisons. May they all rot when karma comes to get them.
This is an extremely-rare occasion when I find myself agreeing with the democrat/liberal minority — that the entire decision should have been limited to deciding whether the 14th Amendment authorizes states to decide who can run as a federal candidate, or whether that decision is reserved for federal CONGRESS, as it pretty-clearly states in the Amendment.
SCOTUS should have been able to come up with that basic ruling within an hour of the hearing that was held almost a full month ago. They took MUCH too long coming up with their ruling, and made it MUCH more-complicated than it needed to be.
And there’s STILL no guarantee that democrat states will abide by the SCOTUS ruling.
There was a bit of an attempted insurrection and USA Federal Agents acting in an undercover capacity were complicit. This is standard procedure by law enforcers for demonstrations and riots. It is nothing new.
Criminals, such as Officer Kat of the Salida Colorado Police Department should be arrested and sent to prison for violations of US Law. She is not only stupid, but dangerously inept and stupid. The judges and lawyers in Denver, who are involved in ballot control and candidate access committed an assortment of crimes recently prior to the SCOTUS rescue of the Constitution. There are real government criminals in Colorado who need attention. ATTENTION: Salida Police Chief – Get contol of your department before you are delivered a subpoena!
“After a five-day trial, the Colorado District Court originally found that former President Trump had “engaged in insurrection” regarding the January 6, 2021 pro-Trump rally and rioting at the US Capitol even though Trump has never been charged with insurrection. In fact, none of the defendants in the heavily-prosecuted case have been charged with insurrection.”
I’m not a lawyer, however I’m reasonably certain that no court has the ability to find a person guilty of an offense that has not been charged. The people of Colorado must be wondering what passes for “law” in their state, and therefore how safe their businesses, properties, and families are in such a lawless wasteland.