Court weighs if Trump can be kept off 2024 ballot for ‘insurrection’

WASHINGTON: A Colorado court began hearing a lawsuit on Monday that seeks to bar Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot on the grounds he violated his oath of office by engaging in an insurrection. 

The case, one of several similar legal efforts to keep the former president out of the running, is likely to eventually end up before the US Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority.

The lawsuit filed in Colorado by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), a Washington-based watchdog group, claims Trump is ineligible to run for the White House again because of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.

The argument, which has legal scholars sharply divided, rests on an amendment to the Constitution ratified after the 1861-65 Civil War.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars anyone from holding public office if they engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” after once pledging to support and defend the Constitution.

The amendment, ratified in 1868, was aimed at preventing supporters of the slave-holding Confederacy from being elected to Congress or from holding federal positions.

Acting on behalf of six Colorado voters, CREW petitioned the Colorado secretary of state, the top election official in the western state, to keep Trump off the ballot in next year´s presidential election.

“Trump incited a violent mob to attack our Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power under our Constitution,” Eric Olson, an attorney for CREW, said in his opening argument at the livestreamed hearing being held in Denver before Judge Sarah Wallace.