Colorado nixing Trump 'strikingly undemocratically' unites experts as ex-Scalia clerk declares 'lawfare'
Republican figures and top legal analysts expressed united outrage at Colorado's all-Democrat Supreme Court ruling former President Trump must be stricken from the state's 2024 election ballot due to a violation of the 14th Amendment's Insurrection Clause.
"The Ingraham Angle" host Laura Ingraham pointed out that from the moment the January 6 riot commenced in 2021, Democrats and Trump opponents urged the use of the term "insurrection" to describe the melee.
Trump also has yet to formally be convicted of insurrection or any Confederacy-era statutes the 14th Amendment is alluding to.
Ingraham noted the Colorado Supreme Court, while entirely Democrat, itself was split on the 4-3 ruling, meaning some Democrats were apprehensive to make such a landmark determination.
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The court issued a stay until the first week of January, to give Trump's team time to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court before the Centennial State's ballot is finalized. The Trump campaign promptly said they plan to appeal to the high bench.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung claimed Democrats are in "in a state of paranoia" over his boss' lead and that they have "lost faith in the failed Biden presidency" so they had to resort to tossing the Republican front-runner's name from the ballot.
On "Special Report," anchor Bret Baier noted the gravity of Colorado's ruling may not yet be fully known, as there are similar pending legal actions in Wyoming, West Virginia, South Carolina, Alaska, Texas, Wisconsin, Nevada, Virginia, New Mexico, New Jersey, Oregon, New York and Vermont, where Trump's fate on the ballot has yet to be adjudicated.
Several key swing states, including Pennsylvania. also have heavily-Democratic state Supreme Courts.
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Chris Landau, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia, declared the Colorado decision "lawfare" by the left trying every potential lever to prevent a second Trump presidency.
"I hope everybody's irony meters are just going off-the-charts tonight because this is one of the most antidemocratic decisions we have seen in American history – that four unelected judges on a state Supreme Court have taken it upon themselves to disqualify someone who otherwise meets all the qualifications of the Constitution," Landau told Fox News.
Landau said he is, however, confident that the Supreme Court will "take one look at" Colorado's case and overturn it.
"It is terrifying to me as an American that this kind of lawfare is being waged, that courts are so presumptuous that they think it's up to them to decide who can be on the ballot to let democracy work," he said.
He added that any jurist is free to dislike Trump but that their opinions should not result in landmark rulings of this magnitude.
"Why are these people so terrified that they're bending all the rules to get Trump off the ballot? Let the people vote," he said.
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George Washington University Law Prof. Jonathan Turley took a similar tact, calling the ruling "strikingly undemocratic," adding that the court took the broadest possible, legally-speaking, interpretation of the law and the Constitution to make the decision.
Ingraham agreed, proffering that left-wing jurists regularly treat the Constitution not as a static document but as political "silly putty."
Turley said January 6 was an abhorrent day, and that those who committed crimes should be prosecuted. However, Turley argued, Jan. 6 should not be seen as an event with the utility of disqualifying a presidential candidate and creating a legal "slippery slope" for every other state where cases are pending or will be brought.
"This is a time when we actually need democracy: We need to allow the voters to vote. We need to hear their decision. And the court here just said, 'You're not going to get that in Colorado'…" he said.
To that end, some of Trump's fellow Republican presidential candidates appeared to stand in solidarity with him, including those who have been routinely critical of his campaign.
Entrepreneur and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy pledged to remove himself from Colorado's primary ballot, and called on all candidates to join him in doing so, saying the court's ruling is "what an actual attack on democracy looks like.
"In an un-American, unconstitutional, and unprecedented decision, a cabal of Democrat judges are barring Trump from the ballot in Colorado. Having tried every trick in the book to eliminate President Trump from running in this election, the bipartisan Establishment is now deploying a new tactic to bar him from ever holding office again," Ramaswamy said Tuesday in Mason City, Iowa.
Speaking in Bedford, N.H., former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – who has made lambasting Trump a hallmark of his campaign – was asked at a town hall about the breaking news.
Christie replied he had yet to read the court's ruling but said courts should not be the ones to prevent Trump from winning the presidency – the voters should.
The 14th Amendment mainly provided equal rights and citizenship to freed slaves and persons of color following the Civil War.
The Insurrection Clause, or Disqualification Clause, in the 14th Amendment bars anyone who took an oath to support the Constitution and "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or [has] given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof" from holding federal or state office.
It was initially intended to target former Confederate Army officers, Confederate officials and those who supported the secessionist Richmond government.
Fox News' Kirill Clark and Kellianne Jones contributed to this report.