Nothing that President Trump did even remotely qualifies as insurrection, his attorneys argue
Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that removed him from the state’s ballot, arguing that other states are following suit with similar legal challenges and that preventing Americans from being able to vote for him in the 2024 Republican primary would “unleash chaos and bedlam.”
President Trump’s attorneys made their request in an opening brief filed with the court on Jan. 18 ahead of oral arguments scheduled to take place before the justices on Feb. 8.
Those oral arguments come after the Colorado court, which is composed entirely of Democrat appointees, determined in its 4–3 ruling in December that the 45th president had engaged in insurrection during the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol and is thus not eligible to run for president.
That ruling marked the first time the Constitution’s “insurrection clause” has been used to remove a presidential candidate from the ballot.
Lawyers for President Trump noted in Thursday’s filing that efforts are underway in more than 30 states to remove their client from primary and general election ballots based on an interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection clause” which bars officials who have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.
“The Court should put a swift and decisive end to these ballot-disqualification efforts, which threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans and which promise to unleash chaos and bedlam if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado’s lead and exclude the likely Republican presidential nominee from their ballots,” they wrote.
President Trump’s legal team took aim at the ruling by Colorado’s top court, arguing that it is “based on a dubious interpretation” of the 14th Amendment under the Constitution.
Trump ‘Not an Officer of the United States’
Specifically, the law disqualifies those who took an oath of office “as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State” and subsequently “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States from membership in Congress or the Electoral College or holding any federal or state office, “civil or military.”
