Thursday’s arguments at the Supreme Court about whether former President Donald Trump is disqualified from the presidency were extraordinary. The grave import of the case was on full display as the justices searched for a way to resolve its immense tensions in the least disruptive way possible. Most commentators expected that the petitioners would be shellacked by the justices. But they fared well in parrying the court’s tough inquiries. By the end of the argument, though, a majority of justices seem to have coalesced around a rough rationale of a ruling for Trump: that this is a national problem that requires action at the federal level, not a patchwork of varying state decisions.
Yet while the court seems poised to rule in Trump’s favor in this case, the petitioners — the Colorado voters represented by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) — exceeded expectations. Hanging over the proceedings was the extraordinary issue of whether Trump “engaged in insurrection,” thus violating the oath he took to support the Constitution. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, ratified in the aftermath of the Civil War, disqualifies insurrectionist former “officers of the United States” from returning to office. The Colorado challengers asked the court to rule that Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, rose to that level. Every fact-finder to reach the question, including the Denver district judge in this state case, the Maine secretary of state and the House Jan. 6 committee, has reached that same unavoidable conclusion.
The justices of the Supreme Court hardly disputed the ruling by the courts below that the former president had engaged in insurrection.
Remarkably, the justices did not challenge that fundamental premise. That alone is significant. For two hours, the justices of the Supreme Court hardly disputed the ruling by the courts below that the former president had engaged in insurrection. That shows the legal system understands full well…
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