Published December 20, 2023
California Democratic Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis made a glaring mistake in her letter to the state’s Secretary of State in demanding former President Donald Trump be removed from the ballot.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 Tuesday that Trump violated the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban” and is ineligible to be on the ballot in the state. The ruling is on hold pending an appeal to the Supreme Court until Jan. 4. The issue must be settled by Jan. 5, when the statutory deadline is to set the list of candidates for the Republican primary.
Kounalakis jumped on the bandwagon and is now seeking to remove Trump as well.
“I urge you to explore every legal option to remove former President Donald Trump from California’s 2024 presidential primary ballot,” the letter begins.
“I am prompted by the Colorado Supreme Court’s recent ruling that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s ballot as a Presidential Candidate due to his role in inciting an insurrection in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. This decision is about honoring the rule of law in our country and protecting the fundamental pillars of our democracy.”
“California must stand on the right side of history,” the letter continues. “California is obligated to determine if Trump is ineligible for the California ballot for the same reasons described in [the Colorado case.”
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SOURCE: www.dailycaller.com
RELATED: Barr says Colorado court’s Trump ruling ‘legally wrong,’ will ‘backfire’
Published December 19, 2023
Former Attorney General Bill Barr criticized the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling to prohibit former President Trump from the state’s primary ballot Wednesday, saying the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to shut down the opinion and that the move could help Trump get elected.
Barr, who served as Trump’s attorney general but doesn’t support the former president in the GOP primary, focused his criticism on how the decision was made, not its contents.
“I strongly oppose Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, but I think that this case is legally wrong and untenable,” Barr said in a CNN interview. “And I think this kind of action of stretching the law, taking these hyper-aggressive positions to try to knock Trump out of the race are counterproductive. They backfire.”
“He feeds on grievance just like a fire feeds on oxygen. And this is going to end up as a grievance that helps him,” Barr continued.
The Colorado decision determined that Trump inflamed and engaged in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and should be disqualified from the state’s ballot under the 14th Amendment. The complex case is likely set for the Supreme Court.
Barr refused to say whether he agrees with the merits of the case, later implying that he believes Trump is responsible for Jan. 6, but he lodged his complaints with how the case was managed. The Colorado case had a short trial featuring five days of argument and was decided without a jury.
“I disagree with the court’s ability to make those findings,” he said. “The core problem here is the denial of due process.”
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SOURCE: www.thehill.com
RELATED: Jack Smith’s Special Counsel Appointment Is Unconstitutional, Former Attorney General Tells Supreme Court
Published December 20, 2023
WASHINGTON, DC – Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel is unconstitutional and so the Supreme Court must reject his petition against Donald Trump, lawyers representing former Attorney General Ed Meese and two top constitutional scholars in the country argued in a brief filed on Wednesday.
Their amicus (or “friend of the court”) brief argues that Smith lacks authority to represent the United States by asking the Supreme Court to weigh in (called a petition for certiorari) because the office he holds has not been created by Congress and his appointment violates the “Appointments Clause” of the Constitution.
The filing essentially claims U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland improperly appointed Smith to an office that does not exist with authority Garland does not possess.
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SOURCE: www,breitbart.com
RELATED: What Colorado’s Supreme Court refuses to understand about Trump and the 14th Amendment
Published December 20, 2023
The Colorado Supreme Court issued a blockbuster decision on Tuesday blocking former President Donald Trump from the 2024 election ballot. It held that the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which barred Confederate rebels from ever holding federal office again, applied to Trump because he had attempted to block the peaceful transfer of power on January 6, 2021. The U.S. Supreme Court should reverse Colorado’s mistake, which would draw the courts even deeper into supervising our presidential elections, and allow the voters to decide for themselves Trump’s responsibility for the attack on the Capitol that day.
Colorado’s Supreme Court is the first court to bar Trump from the ballot on the theory that the former president falls within the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists from holding office again. The Colorado Court, however, erred by finding that the constitutional provision applies to a former president as someone who allegedly participated in a rebellion. It also mistakenly held that the 14th Amendment prohibits any former rebels from running for president. The Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court can follow the clear text, structure, and history of the U.S. Constitution, and find Trump eligible to be elected president.
Article II of the Constitution lists only three qualifications for the presidency. A president must be “a natural born Citizen,” he or she must be at least 35 years old, and he or she must have been a resident of the United States for 14 years. After the Civil War, Congress proposed, and three-quarters of the states, ratified Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to exclude those who had participated in the rebellion from federal office. It is important to read the text of that provision carefully:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
