SCOTUS To Hear Arguments In Trump’s Disqualification From Election Ballots Case

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The US Supreme Court will today hear arguments over whether states can remove former president Donald Trump from 2024 presidential election ballots because of his conduct before and during the breach of the US Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump is appealing to the high court after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that he is disqualified from the election because his conduct on Jan. 6 violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. The section bars from holding public office any “officer of the United States” who took an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the incident on Jan. 6 was indeed an “insurrection” and that, as President, Trump was an “officer of the United States” whose conduct violated the 14th Amendment.

In Thursday’s landmark case, the Supreme Court justices will have to consider what the meaning of “insurrection” actually is: Trump advocates say Jan. 6 was a protest against an election stolen by President Biden. The Justices will then have to consider whether the US President is an “officer” of the United States: the Constitution does not specifically say so, and Trump’s lawyers will argue he was not an officer.

If the justices find there was an insurrection and that the President is an officer of the United States, they will then consider whether Trump’s conduct on the day disqualifies him from state election ballots.

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