‘Bad sign’: Legal scholars question US Supreme Court’s Trump primary ruling

The court struck down a Colorado effort to keep Trump off the state’s primary ballot for his role in the January 6 riot.

Washington, DC – Former United States President Donald Trump hailed it as a victory. His critics blasted it as a blow against accountability.

But experts say the US Supreme Court’s decision to allow Trump to remain on the Colorado primary ballot was always the most likely outcome. The controversy, they argue, lies in the details.

On Monday, the Supreme Court struck down Colorado’s efforts to bar Trump from the state’s Republican presidential primary under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.

That amendment contains a so-called “insurrection clause”: a section of the law that disqualifies candidates from public office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US government.

Colorado’s state Supreme Court ruled in December that Trump had run afoul of the insurrection clause by egging on the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. But in a unanimous ruling, the US Supreme Court deemed the state could not remove Trump from its primary ballot.