US Supreme Court leans against Trump disqualification

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court on Thursday appeared inclined to reject Colorado's disqualification of Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential race on grounds of insurrection, implicitly warning that such a course would set up states against each other and sunder the country.

Justices on both the liberal and conservative spectrum openly expressed worries about the “extraordinary” ramifications of letting states decide whether a candidate is an insurrectionist, even though decentralised election rules and the federal structure of the country allows states to make such a call.

Even liberal justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Jackson Brown voiced concern about states setting the agenda for national election. Conservative justices wondered what would happened if other states began disqualifying rival candidates on political grounds amid concerns that Republicans could retaliate against Trump's disqualification by moving to strike President Biden off the ballot in states they governed.

“I would expect that a goodly number of states will say: ‘Whoever the Democratic candidate is, you're off the ballot. That's a pretty daunting consequence.” Chief Justice John Roberts noted bluntly

Concern about the unity and integrity of the United States seemed to overshadow the question of whether Trump stoked an insurrection on Jan 6, 2021, which the Colorado court cited to disqualify him in the state, setting the precedent for several other states to do the same.

The justices also seemed disinclined to accept the argument that the reference to "officers of the United States" in Section 3 of the 14th amendment in the Constitution included the President.