Supreme Court: Trump Can Stay on Colorado Ballot, Forget the 14th Amendment

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday that Donald Trump can appear on the Colorado state primary ballot, shutting down dozens of similar efforts to ban him from the election for his role in the January 6 insurrection.

The nation’s highest court heard arguments in early February about whether Colorado could disqualify Trump from its ballot under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The majority of the justices had seemed skeptical at the time, and apparently remained so by the time they issued their ruling.

Trump is now eligible to receive votes in Colorado’s Republican primary on Tuesday. The justices’ decision means that Maine and Illinois, which have also disqualified Trump from their presidential primary ballots, must reinstate him.

“Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse,” the justices wrote in their ruling.

Although the ruling was unanimous, the justices were divided in their reasoning behind it. Five conservative justices determined that the Fourteenth Amendment can only be enforced through a law passed by Congress.

The three liberal justices agreed that Colorado couldn’t make such a massive decision on its own, but strongly disputed that the amendment can only be applied through legislation. Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson slammed the majority for overstepping the bounds of the lawsuit at hand, and in doing so, “ruling out enforcement under general federal statutes requiring the government to comply with the law.”

“By resolving these and other questions, the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office,” the three justices wrote in their dissenting opinion.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not rule on the dispute on congressional enforcement, but still, the ruling notes, “All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.”

The Colorado state Supreme Court ruled in December that Trump had engaged in insurrection during the January 6 attack and was therefore ineligible to appear on the primary ballot. Little more than a week later, Maine’s secretary of state also barred him from the state’s ballot.

Multiple other states either are currently weighing or have decided whether Trump can appear on their ballot. The range in decisions prompted many to urge the Supreme Court to weigh in quickly, to avoid confusion ahead of the election.

Trump’s lawyers had said repeatedly they expected the Supreme Court to rule in their favor, even hinting it would be because some of the justices owed Trump some form of allegiance. Trump appointed three of the current justices.

Monday’s decision will provide a single rule for all states for the rest of the election cycle. But it will also likely shape how the Fourteenth Amendment’s language will be interpreted going forward.

This story has been updated.

Congratulations to Nikki Haley on winning her first primary. She should probably thank Donald Trump, who definitely let her win on purpose—at least, according to him.

Haley dominated on Sunday in Washington, D.C.’s Republican primary, notching about 63 percent support. She won all 19 of the city’s Republican delegates, putting an unceremonious halt to Trump’s otherwise unobstructed cruise to the GOP nomination.

Trump, who has far outstripped Haley until now, won just 33 percent support. But that’s OK, because he totally planned it that way.

“I purposely stayed away from the D.C. Vote because it is the ‘Swamp,’ with very few delegates, and no upside. Birdbrain spent all of her time, money and effort there,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Over the weekend we won Missouri, Idaho, and Michigan—BIG NUMBERS—Complete destruction of a very weak opponent.”

Trump called Haley “Birdbrain” again in another post and slammed her for saying Sunday morning that she no longer felt bound to support the former president if he is the GOP nominee, despite signing a pledge to the Republican National Committee to support whoever wins the nomination.

“Birdbrain is a loser, record low performance in virtually every State,” Trump posted. “I enjoy watching the Bird disavow her PLEDGE to the RNC and her statement that she would NEVER run against President Trump (‘A great President’). Well, she ran, she lied, and she LOST BIG!”

Trump’s campaign released a statement Sunday night branding Haley the “Queen of the Swamp” and promising Trump would drain said swamp if he is reelected—despite the fact that Trump actually left Washington “swampier” than when he first arrived.

Despite the D.C. hiccup, Trump is still by far the front-runner in the Republican primary. He has won nearly six times as many delegates as Haley, although he still needs to win another 1,215 before officially claiming the nomination.

The University of Florida nixed its entire diversity, equity, and inclusion staff on Friday, thanks to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s wingman in the GOP’s war on education, Ben Sasse.

Sasse, the former Republican senator from Nebraska turned university president, terminated 13 full-time positions and 15 administrative appointments for faculty members, a university spokesperson told Axios.

According to an administrative memo obtained by the the campus’s student paper, The Alligator, DEI staff would be fired effective immediately, with severances tantamount to 12 weeks of pay. Additionally, $5 million would be redirected from DEI programs and placed in a “faculty recruitment fund” to be administered by the university’s Office of the Provost however it deems fit.

“These colleagues are allowed and encouraged to apply, between now and Friday, April 19, for expedited consideration for different positions currently posted within the university,” the memo read.

“Florida is where DEI goes to die …” DeSantis coldly wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, shortly after the decision became public.

The employees are the latest victims of DeSantis’s all-out war on what he describes as “woke culture” on college campuses—which Sasse has been gleefully helping him lead. Last May, the conservative politician signed a bill that effectively defunded diversity programs, prohibiting state schools from spending state or federal funds on DEI initiatives.

“If you look at the way this has actually been implemented across the country, DEI is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination,” DeSantis said during a press conference at the time. “And that has no place in our public institutions. This bill says the whole experiment with DEI is coming to an end in the state of Florida.”

Amid an ongoing spar over when Donald Trump’s classified documents case will begin, the Justice Department has clarified once and for all that he cannot continue to delay his legal trials by claiming that he has to focus on the election.

On Friday, Judge Eileen Cannon asked about the DOJ’s “60-day rule” against taking actions that might affect an upcoming election.

But the DOJ said that the “60-day rule” does not apply to Trump’s actual trials, on the basis that he was indicted before he started campaigning, and that his trials are already being litigated.

“We are in full compliance with the justice manual,” announced Jay Bratt, a senior counterintelligence supervisor at the Justice Department, during the hearing—which Trump attended in person.

To that end, Trump could be smack dab in the middle of a criminal trial during the election itself.

Over the course of Friday’s hearing, Trump’s legal team argued for an August 12 start date for the trial, even while claiming that going to trial before the presidential election would be “unfair” and tenuous because of the other cases stacked against him. They claimed that federal prosecutors’ proposed start date of July 8—which would see the trial deliberated over the course of the summer—would be “completely unworkable” and an “impossibility for the defendant,” reported NBC News.

Truly, Trump’s legal team does seem stretched a little thin. They are currently dancing between four criminal trials and contending with 91 criminal charges against the former president. Meanwhile, Trump seems to have already run out of money. On Wednesday, the self-proclaimed billionaire was forced to admit that he didn’t have the cash to pay off the $454 million disgorgement stemming from his New York civil fraud trial. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg—Trump owes an additional $88.3 million to E. Jean Carroll for sexually assaulting her and then defaming her twice in his rabid denials. He owes $400,000 to The New York Times and has racked up thousands more over gag orders he’s violated amid all these trials. And, in the realm of non-court-ordered debts, Trump’s former right-hand man, America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani, claimed he still hasn’t been paid for the legal services he provided to the former president, reportedly waiting on a sum of about $2 million.

So far, Trump has stooped to crafting a sneaker campaign and a fan-funded GoFundMe to cover his bills. We’ll see how far that gets.

The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s classified documents trial appeared poised Friday to hand the former president another big victory in his strategy of delaying his legal battles as long as possible.

Trump’s trial for mishandling classified documents was initially set to begin on May 20, but Judge Aileen Cannon was expected to move the date back during a Friday hearing. Special counsel Jack Smith had urged Cannon to only postpone the trial until July, while Trump’s lawyers suggested an August start date.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, did not set a new date during the hearing, but she did express skepticism over Smith’s proposed date. “A lot of work needs to be done in the pretrial phase of this case,” she said. “To try to do 13 motions in a day or even two days seems unrealistic.”

If Cannon agrees to Trump’s proposed trial dates, she will have given the former president a massive win. Trump’s team had originally asked for the trial to start after the election, and then suggested the August 12 start date. The reason, most likely, is so that he could use an August classified documents trial to avoid facing justice in the biggest case against him: the federal election interference trial.

Trump’s whole strategy in his myriad legal struggles has been to delay them as long as possible. If he is reelected in November, then he could instruct the Department of Justice to drop the two federal cases against him, or even try to pardon himself and avoid ever facing accountability for his actions.

The Supreme Court already handed Trump another massive favor on Wednesday by agreeing to hear arguments about whether he has “presidential” immunity from prosecution. This could delay Trump’s trial over interfering in the 2020 election for months.

This is far from the first time Cannon has tipped proceedings toward Trump. She received nationwide scrutiny at the start of the investigation after she appeared favorably inclined to the former president. Trump filed a motion requesting a “special master” to review all of the material the FBI found at Mar-a-Lago before the investigation could proceed, and Cannon agreed—a victory for Team Trump.

The Justice Department appealed the decision, and the Eleventh Circuit Court ultimately ruled that neither Cannon nor Trump had had any legal right for their actions. The appeals court threw Cannon’s decision out entirely.