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[Make sure to read Joseph Klein’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
The Colorado Supreme Court took it upon itself to bar former President Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s ballot in the 2024 presidential primary election. The Colorado Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, based its assault upon the fundamental democratic right of eligible Coloradans to vote for the candidate of their choice on Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Under Section 3, a person is disqualified from holding public office who violated his or her oath as an “officer” of the United States to support the Constitution by engaging “in insurrection or rebellion against the same…”
The Colorado Supreme Court held that Mr. Trump was disqualified from holding the office of president of the United States because he allegedly engaged in what Colorado’s highest court concluded was an “insurrection.” The court below had made the same finding of an “insurrection,” using as evidence the politically biased congressional report drafted by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. However, the lower court judge had held nevertheless that Section 3 did not apply to Mr. Trump as president of the United States, reasoning that a U.S. president was not technically within the category of “officer” covered by Section 3.
The Colorado Supreme Court reversed that specific portion of the lower court’s opinion and went on to order that Mr. Trump was disqualified from appearing on Colorado’s 2024 presidential primary ballot. Recognizing the inevitability of an appeal of its decision, the Colorado Supreme Court stayed its order until at least January 4, 2024, pending possible U.S. Supreme Court review.
The Colorado Supreme Court majority handed down a decision worthy of a banana republic. The U.S. Supreme Court must promptly accept an appeal of, and firmly strike down, this outrageous decision by four progressive state judges who nullified the right of Trump supporters to vote for him in Colorado’s 2024 Republican presidential primary. If left standing, the decision could deprive more than a million Coloradans who voted for Trump against Biden in the 2020 general election to vote for him again in 2024.
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives impeached Mr. Trump in 2021 for allegedly inciting an insurrection on January 6th at the U.S. Capitol, which the House concluded was among the Constitution’s impeachable “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” The House impeachment resolution specifically referred to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which it said “prohibits any person who has ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against’ the United States from ‘hold[ing] any office … under the United States.’”
The U.S. Senate is the legislative body duly authorized by the U.S. Constitution to determine whether an individual impeached by the House should be convicted. Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 of the Constitution provides:
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. (Emphasis added)
The Senate acquitted Mr. Trump of the insurrection impeachment charge. Since he left office, Mr. Trump has not been indicted, much less convicted, under the federal Insurrection Act, which also contains a disqualification provision.
However, none of this meant anything to the Colorado Supreme Court majority. These judges went full steam ahead and decided, based on a shoddy record, that Mr. Trump had incited an insurrection on January 6th.
One of the three dissenters wrote that the case against Mr. Trump should have been dismissed because it lacked any “determination from a proceeding (e.g., a prosecution for an insurrection-related offense) with more rigorous procedures to ensure adequate due process.” There was no due process in the Colorado judiciary’s makeshift proceedings in this case. As this dissenting judge noted in his opinion, the Colorado trial court proceedings “lacked basic discovery, the ability to subpoena documents and compel witnesses, workable timeframes to adequately investigate and develop defenses, and the opportunity for a fair trial—to adjudicate a federal constitutional claim (a complicated one at that) masquerading as a run-of-the-mill state Election Code claim.”
Fifty states going in multiple directions when deciding whether Section 3’s disqualification provision applies to a presidential candidate will inevitably result in a patchwork of conflicting decisions on whether that candidate engaged in an “insurrection.” The problem of how to interpret and apply an ambiguous provision in the U.S. Constitution that could end up depriving a U.S. citizen of the right to run for the office of president of the United States, and depriving voters of the right to vote for that candidate, requires a uniform nationwide approach.
Congress passed the Insurrection Act (18 U.S.C. § 2383) precisely for this purpose, as authorized by Section 5 of the 14th Amendment. Section 5 states that “The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
The Insurrection Act provides that “Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.” (Emphasis added)
Congress has determined the process by which an insurrection charge should be handled to ensure that the accused individual is accorded due process before being convicted and deprived of being able to hold any U.S. public office. Again, the Colorado Supreme Court’s 132-page majority opinion skipped over the fact that Donald Trump has not been indicted, much less convicted, for violating the Insurrection Act.
The state court judges, state electors, and state election officials who have nevertheless determined that Mr. Trump engaged in an insurrection and must therefore be removed from the 2024 presidential primary election ballot have grossly exceeded their constitutional authority.
The Colorado Supreme Court majority also ran roughshod over Trump’s First Amendment rights. Mr. Trump had a First Amendment right to assemble his supporters for a peaceful rally on January 6th and speak to them about his belief that the 2020 election was stolen, whether that was true or not. Mr. Trump also had a First Amendment right to ask his supporters to petition the government for redress. Mr. Trump specifically told his supporters that “everyone here will soon be marching to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” (Emphasis added)
The four Coloradan Democrat judges in the majority tried to minimize Mr. Trump’s explicit call for a peaceful march to the Capitol by twisting other words he used in his speech, such as “fight like hell,” to sound like something sinister. The judges also brushed aside the relevance of a U.S. Supreme Court precedent that set forth a narrow exception to First Amendment protection. This exception involves words, the U.S. Supreme Court held, that are “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and . . . likely to incite or produce such action.”
Encouraging supporters to march “peacefully and patriotically” to make their voices heard is the opposite of fiery words intended to incite a mob to commit imminent lawless action. There was no violence at the site of Mr. Trump’s speech. Mr. Trump did not march with his supporters to the Capitol and had no part in directing the violence by a relatively small number of lawbreakers that ensued there.
Runaway activist judges like the four who arbitrarily decided that Donald Trump’s name should not appear on the 2024 Colorado presidential primary ballot, and that not even write-in votes for him should count, must be reined in. Otherwise, we will no longer be living in a constitutional republic governed by the rule of law. The United States Supreme Court must fix this abuse of the 14th Amendment before it spreads like wildfire to many other states.
What did the trumpster expect when he gave up the gun and refused to fight when he had the means? They sucker punched him when we was looking.
True for sure.
When he had the opportunity to charge Hillary, he decided not to do that. Then she created the Russia collusion lie that the leftists spent the next few years chasing. Then it became obvious it was a giant, Hillary lie. But even with the proof of that lie, the witch still said it was true. She and her colleagues on the left are sociopathic liars, they have no conscience. N.O.N.E.
That’s Communism, there’s no other word for it, when a group of
judges does not allow an individual to appear on their state ballot
in a presidential primary election because he allegedly engaged
in what those same judges concluded was an “insurrection” – even
though the individual has never been indicted or convicted for an
insurrection either in Congress or a court of law.
Now let’s see if the Communist takeover is complete when SCOTUS
makes their decision on this travesty of justice.
God bless Donald J. Trump and America.
The left wants a violent civil war.
This is going to Backfire on them already Florida and Texas has voted to Dump Biden
They may do it here in Arizona too. Dump the crook for treason.
They need to feel some pain for their corrupted actions. So far, too many rinos have saved their collective skin.
Now we know why they called it an insurrection and why innocent Americans were held as political prisoners for two years in solitary confinement without trial.
Planned from the start. One has to admire their ability to manipulate the system.
“Admire” is not a good word to describe this travesty.
The USSC will overturn this decision, based only on their own made up charges.
Pres Trump was never charged nor convicted in a real court of law for any “insurrection” nonsense, plus now his opponent’s party will not allow those voters to write his name in. That’s tyranny and a total violation of our RIGHT to vote for whomever we want.
The liberal state of CO has decided they don’t want Pres Trump to have his name on the ballot and are using this decision to totally eliminate any opponent they want to put at a huge disadvantage. Plus it also punishes the people in CO for making their own decision on who they want to vote for. Unconstitutional.
Try as they might, they should never be allowed to make a move against legal voters. We are legion this time.
If Scotus upholds the Colorado decision then it will be open season on any Democrat candidate. There will be no way to have any meaningful elections. It will simply be chaos throughout the country.
I hope that Republicans will stop playing cutsie and actually fight back.
Rush Limbaugh predicted it on the radio: Democ-rats are only a few election cycles away from eliminating elections altogether. With no way to peacefully express its will, the American electorate will either roll over or blow up. The fate of Donald J. Trump is the fate of the U.S.A. Fear not; Rush Limbaugh will let us know when it’s time to panic.
Before his death, Limbaugh assured us it would never be time to panic. There are always options, even if we no longer have our Constitution.
Merry Christmas, my comrade in arms. How does the holiday find you?
COMMUNIST SANDINISTA DANIEL ORTEGA, installed into power by Carter and the Democrats, and STILL IN POWER… arrests all opponents “as a threat to our Democracy.” Sound Familiar?
So many other Latin countries that are doing the same, all propped up by DEMOCRATS.
Cubans are protesting for FREEDOM, risking their lives, being arrested, never heard from again, AND STILL, the Democrats support the COMMUNIST REGIME!
The Democrat’s Dream: ONE-PARTY RULE LIKE CUBA. Hey, they have a point.
No election hassles.
No endless campaign commercials.
No campaign events.
No debates.
One person gets 100% of the vote.
One person does the thinking for everyone.
Everyone agrees with you.
Free one pound of arroz and five pounds of pollo per month. (Hey don’t knock it… we have EBT.)
Free Healthcare. (Better care if you’re in the Party.)
Everyone equal. (Equally poor but then Gates, Buffet, Soros can spread their wealth. Obama, and his dream, President for life. “OBAMA! OBAMA! WE LOVE YOU OBAMA!”)
WHEN, NOT IF, Biden grants full amnesty to 30-40 million ILLEGALS, the Democrat Machine will quickly register them to vote, their real reason for open borders, revealed. With those overwhelming numbers, they will win EVERY RACE giving their Dream of ONE-PARTY RULE!
It was the Biden White House that meddled in Brazil’s election this last time. Now they are going after Israel’s. It’s time for some karma.
No one should vote in Colorado
Worthwhile reading. Paragraph 3 “…worthy of a banana republic.” Well, it’s what the country has become, isn’t it? That said, can one reasonably expect SCOTUS to do the right thing? Probably not.
Apparently 16 other states have decided to jump on the Colorado bandwagon. “Long Live Chaos” is the battle cry of Democrats for the New Year. They’ve got their skin on for the fight; Republicans need to do the same.
Definitely, the Supreme Court is more attuned to politics than justice. One should not be overly confident they will vote to correct Colorado’s error. One could see a 3 to 6 vote to allow CO to continue the misdirection.
I am not a Trump supporter. I think he is a sociopath and a narcissist. I do not want him to be President. He only cares about himself and whatever makes him look good. He has a permanent level of grievance and insecurity that can never be filled.
However, I am an attorney and I disagree with the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was clearly only designed to apply to those who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. It was never intended to apply to a situation like this in the year 2023. Plus, Trump has not yet been convicted of any crime and was not convicted by the Senate in the Impeachment proceeding.
Part of the problem is that we have never had a President like Trump, He has done things no one has ever done before so we have to apply laws and constitutional amendments to situations for the first time because these situations have never happened before. HIs supporters think that is good. I do not.
However, I believe the United States Supreme Court must reverse this decision quickly and unanimously.
The “never done before” tactics of twisting of old statutes to apply in modern circumstances well beyond the legislative intent of the original lawmakers, the blatant disregard for the Constitution and the selective non-enforcement of statutory and constitutional provisions to subvert the will of the people belong to the progressive left. The left’s radical measures require radical response – a president who is NOT like any we have had before and is a GOOD thing. No more business as usual.
Sociopath and narcissist? He has demonstrated, unlike Biden and many others, self-sacrifice in his desire to save the country and restore hope to Americans. Biden and other become millionaires while citizens suffer and despair. Trump has suffered much at the hands of leftists, his family under relentless attack and his business interests negatively affected. He is not permanently “aggrieved,” he knows the real target is the American people, and he is just, as he says, “standing in the way.” WE are aggrieved and he is doing battle on our behalf. And Americans do BETTER, not worse, when Trump is in office.
Insecurity? Absolutely not. Trump is a self-assured alpha male of supreme confidence. Unlike Biden and leftists, Trump meets hard questions and accusations head on, never running from the microphone. Look how Trump represents us at the United Nations and before foreign nations! Anything less than American first is cowardly, weak and evil.
If you think that Trump is a “sociopath and a narcissist,” I have to ask you, doctor, what are your psychiatric opinions of Barry Obama (who thought he could “heal the planet” and knew more about policy specifics than his advisors) and Joe Biden (who even before he became demented kept touching children inappropriately and showered with his daughter).
You might also want to remember that even though modern psychology is no more than pseudo-science, these terms still have fairly specific meanings. “Sociopath” in particular implies a marked pattern of anti-social behavior. I don’t think being a successful real estate developer and presidential candidate qualifies.
Bill Clinton: “hey, don’t forget about me – remember, I was the first to get bj’s in the oval office from young interns- I belong on every sociopath list!”
Indeed – the only reason I didn’t mention Bubba was because officially at least he lacks any criminal convictions. Personally, I believe he may well have had a juvenile record that was later purged. And once he became Arkansas Governor, he was in a position to cover up any crimes he may have committed as an adult.
The bandwagon of states investigating the removal of Trump from the presidential ballot is growing fast.
Newsweek’s list including Colorado and California is: Michigan, New Hampshire, Arizona, West Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Nevada, Montana,, Utah, Kansas, Idaho, Oklahoma, Wyoming, New York, New Mexico, Texas, Vermont, Virginia,
The website 100% FedUp also adds: Maine, Minnesota, Alaska, New Jersey, Oregon, Wisconsin.
This implys that the Dems are not certain that they can win in Colorado.
Part 2
Furthermore, getting Trump removed from the ballot is another template from the Obama’s school of Chicago politics. In the run up to the 2004 U.S. senate election, Obama had his mainstream media minions seek to force the opening of his rival, Jack Ryan’s sealed divorce agreement. The information in the divorce was completely irrelevant to the election! Ryan never cheated on his wife and the non-scandal information was Jack was getting bored with his marriage and asked his wife, Jeri to go to some private swingers clubs – that’s it. Ryan was a wimp, rather than tell the good people of Illinois this is irrelevant, he got embarrassed to this nothing burger of a personal matter and dropped out of the race! This left the unknown Alan Keyes to run in Ryan’s place against Obama and Obama won in a landslide.
Had I been Ryan’s advisor, I’d tell him to have a press conference and tell the voters of Illinois that Barack Obama is immoral in his attempt to open up my sealed divorce agreement. I would have advised Ryan to say, he knows of the rumors surrounding Obama’s homosexual activities but that he didn’t bring it to light because it’s irrelevant to the people of Illinois in making their choice for senator. I would have had Ryan say, I don’t intend to comment on my personal life with my ex-wife, just as I feel it’s inappropriate to use rumors of Obama’s personal sexuality to advance my political career. The people of Illinois can either choose me or my opponent, who attempted to invade the privacy of my past relationship with my ex-wife. I leave it up to the good people of Illinois who they think would make a better senator.
The bottom-line is it’s a combination of from Saddam Hussein’s election playbook and Barack Obama’s radical rules to win elections by the Chicago way, where Biden runs unopposed in Democratic state primaries and where extreme progressives seek to remove Trump from running for office
Part 1
I find it ironic that the hypocrisy is so blatant regarding taking away citizens’ rights to vote for the candidate of their choice. This is coming on the heels of the 2024 election, where many progressives want to make abortion available based on a woman’s right to choose. Abortion advocates loudly chant and hold signs saying ‘My body – my choice’ yet these very same people ironically cheer on the movement to remove Donald Trump’s name from the ballot. So according to these people, abortion should be a woman’s right to choose but when it comes to elections, only progressives have the right to determine the list of approved candidates in an election!
So… America is turning into Iran now? Where an unelected council of religious clerics makes the determination of who can run for office. But within the Democratic Party it’s even worse, they’re taking a page from Saddam Hussein’s election playbook. Where Hussein only allowed his name to be put on ballot and then after the voting process, declared he won 100% of the vote. For some ridiculous reason which still isn’t apparent, hardcore Biden backers are changing some state primary rules making it nearly impossible for any other candidates’ names to be placed on the ballot. This isn’t just the Saddam Hussein’s election playbook, it’s the Barack Obama Chicago radical rules to win an election. Obama ran unopposed as the Democrat Party’s state senator candidate by challenging voting petition signatures of his potential rivals, including incumbent Alice Palmer.
Use the 25th against Biden. There is a REAL case for that!
These people who have never risked their lives for the slightest thing except Trump’s flatulence think we respect them?
Why didn’t Biden just change America’s name to the fascist state of Obamistan on Nov.3, 2020? That is what it is.
Trump is the most investigated, slandered, unfairly charged, and attacked President for what he did right because the New World Order can’t afford for America to have a President that makes America great and powerful.