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Colorado’s supreme court has barred Donald Trump from being included as a candidate in the state’s Republican presidential primary ballot due to his involvement in efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election that culminated in the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol.
The court on Tuesday said Trump was not fit to be president under the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits individuals who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding office. Trump therefore could not be added to the ballot, the court said.
The court wrote that evidence presented to it “established that President Trump engaged in insurrection”. The decision of the seven member court was 4-3. “President Trump’s direct and express efforts, over several months, exhorting his supporters to march to the Capitol to prevent what he falsely characterised as an alleged fraud on the people of this country were indisputably overt and voluntary.”
Trump is the clear frontrunner in the Republican race to be the party’s nominee for the 2024 presidential election. He is also facing criminal charges, in federal court and in the state of Georgia, in connection with alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. He has pleaded not guilty.
“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” the majority wrote. “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favour, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”
The Trump campaign said the order was “completely flawed” and that it would “swiftly file” an appeal against it with the US Supreme Court. Lawyers representing Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tuesday’s decision stems from a case brought earlier this year from a group of Colorado voters who claimed Trump had engaged in insurrection on January 6, 2021, when a group of his supporters stormed the US Capitol in a bid to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in presidential polls.
Colorado has just 10 of the 538 total votes in the electoral college used to decide the US presidential winner. Legal efforts to disqualify Trump in a handful of other states, including Minnesota, Arizona and Michigan, have so far fallen short.
However, the Colorado dispute will tee up a potentially bombshell case before the US Supreme Court, the effects of which would extend beyond the western state. The Colorado justices stayed the ruling until January 4, the day before the deadline to certify the primary ballots, pending a potential review by the country’s highest court.
“We are . . . cognisant that we travel in uncharted territory, and that this case presents several issues of first impression,” the justices said.