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Two months on, the federal case has slowed to the point that a decision is unlikely before November. One of the state’s cases was derailed by a sex scandal. Another is scheduled to go on trial later this month, but is widely seen as the least important of the group.
And the challenge to Mr. Trump’s voting eligibility was decisively resolved on Monday, with the Supreme Court unanimously ruling that states did not have the power to disqualify him.
Recent developments are sobering for those who had hoped that Trump’s efforts to overturn the last election would result in the justice system delivering meaningful punishment to him before the next election. There was found.
“The real bottom line is that the courts are not going to save us from ourselves,” said Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. Presidential success means winning at the ballot box. ”
The court was widely expected to rule in Trump’s favor, but the ruling comes amid a series of setbacks in efforts to hold Trump accountable for trying to block the transfer of power after the 2020 vote. I was disappointed. Trump also has a lead over President Biden in many head-to-head races and remains ahead in the Republican primary, with a chance to make intraparty contests virtually impossible as 15 states vote on Tuesday. .
The court’s 9-0 ruling overturned the Colorado Supreme Court’s December ruling that barred Trump from participating in the state’s vote under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. A Civil War-era provision prohibits anyone who participated in the rebellion from holding public office again after taking the oath to the Constitution. The Colorado court cited President Trump’s role in the events before and after the January 6, 2021 insurrection as the basis for its decision.
Trump is the first former president to be charged with a crime. He faces four separate lawsuits, two of which are related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
All nine justices, six conservatives and three liberals, said individual states should not be able to bar candidates from running for Congress. They warned of the consequences of a national patchwork in which candidates are shut out in some states but not in others.
“Nowhere in the Constitution are we required to endure such disruption at any time or even at different times, up to and perhaps even before Inauguration Day,” the court wrote in an unsigned 13-page opinion. I can withstand it even after that.”
The push to disqualify Trump under the rarely used Article III has divided constitutional scholars, with some defending the case and others questioning the legality of blocking Trump from running for office. Some expressed doubts about the practical impact, or both.
Mark Graeber, a constitutional law scholar at the University of Maryland who published a book last year on the history of the 14th Amendment, said the justices appeared to be focused on the ban’s real-world impact, but the legal basis for their decision was Said it was thin.
“This opinion makes sense as a matter of policy,” Graeber said.
While it may be a good idea to have a rule that states cannot disqualify federal employees or candidates for federal office, Graeber said, the 14th Amendment states that “states cannot disqualify federal employees.” “It can be taken away, but it’s not,” he said. Federal employee. ”
The conservative former U.S. Court of Appeals judge wrote an article with Laurence H. Tribe in the Atlantic in August that sparked interest in the 14th Amendment as a way to disqualify President Trump. J. Michael Luttig cited language suggesting that President Trump should be disqualified. Three liberal justices criticized elements of the majority decision in a concurring opinion. Liberals agreed with conservatives that states should be prohibited from removing candidates from the presidential ballot under Article III, but agreed with the majority that spelled out Congress’s role in disqualification. I didn’t. Luttig argued that this standard makes it functionally impossible to disqualify insurrectionists from holding federal office.
“The court today ruled that no person may now be disqualified under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, regardless of whether he or she has participated in insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution.” said Luttig. “This decision is astonishing in its overreach.”
The impact of Monday’s decision was immediate, effectively nullifying efforts in states across the country to bar Trump from running for office. Within hours of the ruling, Maine Secretary of State Shena Bellows reversed an earlier decision that Trump should be barred from the state’s vote. Maine’s primary election is Tuesday.
In comments immediately after the ruling, President Trump praised the court’s decision and quickly turned the conversation to another “equally important” case before the court, revisiting his far-reaching claim of immunity from prosecution for conduct during his presidency. . The Supreme Court last week agreed to reconsider President Trump’s arguments on the issue, setting oral arguments for late April. The decision is a blow to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s efforts to move the federal government’s Jan. 6 case to trial quickly, raising questions about whether a verdict will be handed down before the November election. I threw it.
Trump allies welcomed Monday’s ruling. “The Supreme Court unanimously showed today that democracy cannot be blocked by silencing the voices of the American people,” Alina Haba, one of Trump’s lawyers, said in a post on X. Ta.
The court pointedly did not address whether President Trump was involved in the insurrection. In Colorado, Secretary of State Jenna Griswold, a Democrat, said while she welcomed the clarity that the decision would prepare millions of Americans to vote, she was “disappointed” by the ruling. ” he said.
“Given that Congress is not functioning, candidates who have broken their federal oath will be given a pass to run again,” she said.
Norma Anderson, a former Colorado House and Senate majority leader and a plaintiff in the case, said the court’s decision “does not change the fact that Donald Trump engaged in an insurrection against the Constitution of the United States.”
She added that she now believes that “a trial against Donald Trump will be no hindrance.” All you have to do is go to the ballot box. ”
Quentin Fawkes, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, echoed similar sentiments. “We’re not really concerned” about Colorado’s decision, he said on MSNBC. “Our focus from day one of launching this campaign has been to defeat Donald Trump at the polls.”
Asked about the incident in December, Biden said it was “obvious” that Trump was an insurrectionist, but he did not say what the court should rule. “I will leave it to the courts to decide whether the 14th Amendment applies,” the president told reporters. “But I’m sure he supported the rebellion. There’s no question about that. None. Zero.”
Still, Mr. Biden has framed much of his re-election effort around the idea that he is uniquely positioned to protect the country’s democracy by defeating Mr. Trump and preventing him from returning to the Oval Office. Mr. Biden’s aides and allies have described Mr. Trump’s prospects for a second term as an existential threat to Americans’ fundamental freedoms and sense of security, but the court and the Republican primary remain upheld. I believe that if it becomes clear what cannot be done, then the message can be conveyed more effectively. The former president was removed from the vote in November.
Mr. Biden and his allies say they are eager for a one-on-one matchup between the two, which would once again force voters to make tough choices.
“I’m the only one who beat him,” Biden told The New Yorker in an interview published Monday. “And I’ll beat him again.”
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