A group of Colorado voters laid out their arguments before the Supreme Court on Friday why former President Donald J. Trump should be barred from the state’s primary, arguing that his actions leading up to the attack on the Capitol on March 6 January 2021 was tantamount to an uprising.
In a court filing that included photos of rioters attacking the Capitol and tweets from Mr. Trump, voters forcefully alleged that Mr. Trump had pushed ahead with a brazen attack on democracy and thereby betrayed his oath of office.
“As President, Trump swore to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” the voter briefing says. It continued: “Instead of peacefully transferring power, Trump intentionally organized and incited a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol in a desperate attempt to prevent the counting of electoral votes cast against him.”
Mr. Trump’s lawyers called on the Supreme Court to intervene after Colorado’s top court declared him ineligible because it found he was interfering in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the lead-up to the Capitol insurrection had committed an uprising.
The justices are expected to hear Trump v. Anderson, No. 23-719, on Feb. 8, less than a month before Super Tuesday, when many states, including Colorado, hold their primaries.
The central question in this case is the meaning of a clause in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that was added after the Civil War. This language prohibits those “who have previously taken an oath, 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,” from holding office Constitution of the United States,” have “participated in insurrection or rebellion against it, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
This ban can be repealed with a two-thirds majority in each chamber of Congress.
In their letter, Colorado voters claimed that Mr. Trump’s lawsuit did not fully address the core question of the case: whether he participated in an insurrection.
In his letter, Mr. Trump focused on whether Section 3 applied to him, arguing that it did not because the clause did not specifically identify the president as one of the officials. “The President is not an ‘officer of the United States,’ as that term is used in the Constitution,” Trump’s letter said.
Attorneys for Colorado voters rejected that interpretation.
“Section 3 does not give carte blanche to insurgent presidents,” their brief states. “They are ‘officers’ because they hold an ‘office’.”
They added: “It would be contrary to common sense to suggest that Section 3 disqualifies any insurgent official who breaks his oath (up to and including the postmaster or county sheriff), except for the most powerful – a former commander-in-chief.”
The letter focused heavily on the history of the amendment, describing how sparingly it was used for over a century “because, fortunately, insurrections against the Constitution rarely occurred.”
They argued that Mr. Trump’s actions leading up to the attack on the Capitol amounted to an insurrection.
“Trump refused to accept defeat,” the letter said. “Instead, Trump rallied an angry crowd and incited them to attack the Capitol and disrupt the certification of his election defeat.”
After weeks of tweeting, Mr. Trump continued: “On January 6th, Trump lit the fuse.”
“Aware of the risk of violence and knowing that the crowd was angry and armed,” it continued, “Trump made both explicit and implicit calls for violence during his speech at the Ellipse.”
Photographs of the Jan. 6 attack were visible throughout the letter. One showed the chaos from outside as the rioters stormed inside. Blue “Trump 2020” banners could be seen.
Another photo showed a man in a police uniform wincing in pain while trapped in a doorway. The accompanying description said: “The mob brutally and repeatedly knocked down another witness, Officer Daniel Hodges, in a metal doorframe as he attempted to breach an entrance to the Capitol.”
The filing also included images of Trump’s tweets after his election loss and in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, including a Dec. 19 post in which Mr. Trump wrote: “Big protest in DC on Jan. 6.” Be there, it it’s going to be wild!”
The lawyers overlaid a timeline of Mr. Trump’s tweets with photos of the rioters storming the Capitol, writing that he was “celebrating the violence.”
A response from Mr Trump, if he files one, is due on February 5.
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2024-01-26 21:09:15
www.nytimes.com