Washington — Thursday, former President Donald Trump's lawyers urged the Supreme Court “to put a swift and decisive end” to efforts to remove him off the 2024 presidential ballot over his 2020 election loss appeal.
Trump's attorneys filed a formal petition to overturn a first-ever Colorado Supreme Court ruling that barred him on the Republican primary ballot due to his part in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol assault.
Both parties want the courts to decide swiftly whether Trump, the top Republican contender for president, is able to run. Case arguments are scheduled for Feb. 8. The court is handling the argument in a short period to decide before Super Tuesday on March 5, when the most delegates are up for grabs, including in Colorado.
The case is the high court's first look at a 14th Amendment provision prohibiting “engaged in insurrection” from public office. The amendment passed in 1868 after the Civil War.
Trump's lawyers wrote that efforts to keep him off the ballot “threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans and... 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 stated that Trump should win for numerous reasons, including his non-insurrection. “President Trump repeatedly called for peace, patriotism, and law and order,” the attorneys said.
The Colorado court observed that Trump had rallied outside the White House and urged his followers to “fight like hell” before walking to the Capitol.
Texas lawyer Jonathan Mitchell leads Trump's Supreme Court team. Mitchell drafted parts of the anti-abortion legislation that shut down abortions in Texas months before the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June 2022.