Prediction: #SCOTUS will ban #DonaldTrump from the ballot in #America 🇺🇸.
Based on this article #Trump seems to have a skill of upsetting Chief Justice Robert’s.
👉🏾 Supreme Court may not escape unscathed from its latest date with Trump https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/08/politics/donald-trump-supreme-court-2024-analysis/index.html
Not mentioned here, but #NikkiHaley keeps talking about staying in the race past #SouthCarolina.
I think she is predicting that Trump will be banned as well, making her the default #GOP nominee (upsetting many #republicans).
@darnell Do you think he could win with write-ins?
@pre No. A ban would mean Trump would be ineligible to hold office for the rest of his life in any political position.
@darnell Right, so it's not really about being listed on the ballot it's about being able to serve at all.
Even if he got the write-in votes he'd be banned from the office not just the ballot.
Fingers crossed then!
@pre @darnell Here's the full text of the 14th Amendment:
"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, 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 legislature, 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."
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-14/section-3/
I'm not a US constitutional lawyer, but here's my layman's reading of it:
If the Supreme Court decides 6 January was "insurrection or rebellion" against the United States.
And if it decides Donny participated in it, "having previously taken an oath, as ... an officer of the United States" to "support the Constitution of the United States".
Then Donny can't be a "Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State".
The only way it can be lifted is if Congress votes to lift it "by a vote of two-thirds of each House".
I get the feeling Nikki Haley is secretly hoping that happens...
Giving comfort to the enemy seems like it'd be a good negotiating tactic to reclaim some peace rather than a reason to ban a person from office.
Sounds like his best bet is to insist he wasn't involved in the 6th Jan events. That seems pretty defensible, he wasn't even there at the time.
@pre keep in mind that there are a variety of arguments on the table as to why the 14th doesn't prevent Trump from office.
Off the top of my head, there's the matter of what constitutes an officer of the US, what is required for guilt with regard to the article, the process for determining that guilt, etc.
The 14th doesn't take effect unless all of those links in the chain are found to be solid. Any single one of them being weak would nullify the amendment to this case.
The idea of insisting that he wasn't involved is only one of many arguments at play here.
@volkris @pre @ajsadauskas I posted this before, but courts have used the 14th Amendment to remove &/or prevent people from political office, the most recent case was in 2022: https://www.citizensforethics.org/news/press-releases/judge-removes-couy-griffin-from-office-for-engaging-in-the-january-6-insurrection/
There is a potential Trump can be barred if the Supreme Court declares him an insurrectionists.
@darnell and I pointed out in the other comment that there are vast legal differences between the CREW case and this one.
But another issue is that the Supreme Court only has authority to rule on questions put before it.
The question here, on appeal, is a purely legal question, and it is not whether Trump is an insurrectionist.
The question is:
>Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in ordering President Trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot?
It's mainly a matter of law. Did CO break its state laws when ordering Trump excluded?
Remember, so often SCOTUS issues rulings where it emphasizes that its place as an appeals court is not to determine guilt or innocence. Its place is just to make sure legal procedures were followed.
@volkris @pre @ajsadauskas The Supreme Court is deciding on whether Colorado’s ruling that Trump is an insurrectionist is correct. If they agree, Trump will be barred from holding any political office in the United States 🇺🇸. If they disagree, Trump will be allowed to remain on the ballot.
It is really that simple.
@darnell no, it's not. If the court was to decide that, then it would need such a question before it.
I shared the question directly from the court above. It was a different question.
The question, according to the plaintiffs and the Court itself, is whether the CO court erred, not whether Trump is guilty.
Sometimes courts do get guilt wrong even though they followed the law correctly. They are two different issues, and the appeals court only looks at the law, not the guilt.
