Donald Trump’s lawyers have warned that if the United States Supreme Court upholds Colorado’s decision to remove the Republican presidential frontrunner from the ballot, the entire country might be thrown into chaos.
Last month, the Colorado Supreme Court found Trump ineligible to seek for re-election, and he was removed off the presidential primary ballot on March 5. The court referred to the 14th Amendment, which prohibits insurrectionists from holding public office.
Trump’s lawyers claimed again on Thursday that the former president did not start the violence on January 6, 2021.
The Colorado ruling, which was the first of its kind, has been left in limbo pending a decision by the US Supreme Court, with the first oral arguments in the case set for February 8.
“The court should put a swift and decisive end to these ballot-disqualification efforts, which threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. They added that, if other states follow Colorado’s lead, it would “unleash chaos and bedlam.”
The former president’s legal team also pointed out that the legislation cited by the Colorado Supreme Court applies exclusively to “officers of the United States,” which Trump is not.
The attorneys claimed that the Republican firebrand was not inciting rebellion when he urged on his supporters to “fight like hell” on January 6, but rather “raising concerns about the integrity of the recent federal election.”
According to Trump’s defence team, he intended the statement simply symbolically and did not expect his fans to interpret it as a call to violence. They also stated that, as events unfolded on Capitol Hill that day, Trump “repeatedly called for peace, patriotism, and law and order.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and numerous other Republican lawmakers have urged the US Supreme Court to overturn Colorado’s “insurrectionist ban.” A handful of Republican secretaries of state also cautioned the courts that Trump’s potential removal from the ballot would result in a “foreseeable and unfortunate parade of horribles.”
On January 6, the Maine secretary of state issued a tentative ballot restriction similar to Colorado’s, prompting multiple challenges in neighbouring states. The final decision, however, rests with the United States Supreme Court.
