Former US President Donald Trump (Photo: Reuters).
Trump's team filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court on January 3 in an effort to overturn a Colorado court decision to disqualify him from the state's presidential candidacy in the 2024 US election.
Mr. Trump appealed the Colorado Supreme Court's December 2023 ruling, marking the first time in history that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment has been used to bar a presidential candidate from voting.
The Colorado court found that Mr. Trump had a role in the riots at the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021. Therefore, the Colorado judiciary decided to activate the 14th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from the list of candidates in the state's election.
Mr. Trump denied the accusations, emphasizing that he had nothing to do with the incident.
Mr. Trump is asking the Supreme Court justices to overturn the Colorado court’s ruling without hearing arguments. The constitutional provision has been used so rarely in U.S. history that the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on it.
The Trump team's move on January 3 came a day after he appealed to overturn Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows' decision that Trump was ineligible to appear on the state's ballot.
The US Supreme Court is facing pressure because its ruling could affect Mr. Trump’s political career. Six of the nine justices on the US Supreme Court were appointed by the Republican Party and three were appointed by Mr. Trump himself when he was president.
The "seditious" clause is found in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. It states that anyone who has sworn an oath to defend the Constitution but then engages in "an insurrection against the Constitution" is barred from holding office in Congress, the military, or federal or state agencies.
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