According to Jena Griswold, the erstwhile CO Secretary of State, SCOTUS should absolutely rule that Trump is an insurrectionist. If they don’t, they are no friends of democracy.

Griswold told CNN anchor John Berman she knows that the Supreme Court has “not been friendly” to democracy the day after the body heard oral arguments in the Trump v. Anderson case on Thursday.

The state official stressed the importance of the case and noted she found it surprising that the justices did not seem to discuss whether Trump committed an “insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021.

 This is truly laughable. Yet many of us here in CO aren’t laughing about this mess that Jena Griswold and Norma Anderson among others have dragged our state into. This case before the Supreme Court is about determining whether a state has the RIGHT to keep a NATIONAL candidate off the ballot. It is not and never has been about deciding whether Trump is or was an insurrectionist. That is an entirely different case under different statues. 

That said, I swear, Jena is going to persist until the day she dies on this hill. 

Donald Trump continues to lie to the American people about his role in the January 6 insurrection. No American should be above the law — I hope #SCOTUS sees through his lies and keeps him off the Colorado ballot. pic.twitter.com/eWFA6xZLAN

— Jena Griswold (@JenaGriswold) February 9, 2024

Jena, you can persist all you want, but the case before the Supreme Court never was about deciding whether President Trump is an insurrectionist. It is about a state arbitrarily deciding if a national candidate can or should be allowed to be on the ballot! 

As several Supreme Court justices made clear during their questions, what Colorado is attempting to do is unprecedented across the history of the 14th Amendment being enacted. 

…It was Jackson who described Griswold's theory as anti-democratic. Griswold also ignores that her state is the outlier among dozens of states asked to take this action. She is trying to block voting for the leading candidate for the White House…in the name of democracy.

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 9, 2024

As has been noted here multiple times, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment doesn’t include the actual office of the President. 

The case centers on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was enacted in the wake of the Civil War to disqualify individuals from holding office who had previously served in the federal or state government before the war but then supported the Confederacy. It provides (as relevant here) that no one “shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State,” if that person had previously sworn, “as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States” to support the Constitution but then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the federal government.

Read the above carefully. The President or Vice President is only mentioned in that someone who was and elector as in the electoral college, who had conspired against the U.S. cannot be allowed to hold that role. Not only that, but it was only members of Congress or a military officer who were disqualified from holding office. The President is not listed in that equation.

As Toni wrote here, the SCOTUS court as a whole was highly skeptical of the reasonings put forth by the attorneys representing Colorado. Basically upon review for the second time, the attorneys representing Colorado were schooled, BIGLY. 

That said, it isn’t just Jena who is on board demanding that SCOTUS ignore the law and the case itself and rule that Trump is an insurrectionist. It’s the media and other Democrat politicians. 

Details Glenn? You mean …THE LAW? You are demanding that the court decide the case on the political merits rather than legal so that your guy can win and Trump loses. 

Except, as Jonathan Turley points out here, these days many legal commentators aren’t discussing the merits of the LAW, they are discussing it from their political narrative perches. So, for the court to be questioning on the merits of the 14th Amendment and the case itself, has sent watchers like Jena Griswold and Congressman Jamie Raskin into tailspins. 

Disqualifying Trump from office under Section III of the 14th Amendment doesn't undermine democracy—insurrection does that.

The Framers of the 14th Amendment sought to protect democracy against violent attack—and our Supreme Court should too. pic.twitter.com/XiKLb0swV8

— Rep. Jamie Raskin (@RepRaskin) February 9, 2024

Raskin, who was amazingly, a Constitutional law professor back in the day, is completely ignoring Section 5 of the 14th that explicitly says that it is the job of CONGRESS to determine who is or isn’t eligible to be on a national ballot. Furthermore, the 14th wasn’t enacted to stop future insurrections. It was enacted to punish those elected officials who fought for the South. 

But today, the likes of Jamie Raskin and Jena Griswold want to weaponize the law and place demands upon the Supreme Court. Rule our way…or else is the implicit warning. 

As the House’s preeminent constitutional scholar says, “This is their opportunity to behave like real Supreme Court justices.”

In other words, use grotesque law fare to ban Trump from the ballot and all SCOTUS justices will be handed the keys to the kingdom. 

This case wasn’t about insurrection. It is about whether a STATE has the ability to keep a national candidate off the ballot and disenfranchise voters by doing so. 

Welcome HotAir readers!

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