Donald Trump can stay on Colorado ballot after Supreme Court rejects he was accountable for Capitol riots
The US Supreme Court has rejected Colorado state attempts to remove Donald Trump from the ballot for president.
He can now remain on the ballot for president in the state after the court rejected claims he was accountable for the Capitol riots in 2021.
On his social media platform after the ruling, Trump wrote: “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!”
Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic president Joe Biden in November’s US election.
His only remaining rival for his party’s nomination is former South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley.
The Colorado Supreme Court said in December Trump could not stand for election in the state because he had “engaged in insurrection or rebellion”.
The judges ruled Trump was disqualified because he had incited the 6 January riot at the Capitol building in Washington DC in an attempt to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
The 14th Amendment’s Section 3 bars from office any “officer of the United States” who took an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”.
“We conclude that states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office.
“But states have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency,” the unsigned opinion for the court stated.
A police officer outside the Supreme Court building in Washington DC following Monday’s ruling. Pic: Reuters
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The justices found that only Congress can enforce the provision against federal officeholders and candidates.
Trump was also barred from the ballot in Maine and Illinois based on the 14th Amendment, but those decisions were put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Colorado case.
The former president’s eligibility had been challenged in court by a group of six voters in Colorado – four Republicans and two independents – who portrayed him as a threat to American democracy and sought to hold him accountable for the 6 January riots.
In a bid to prevent Congress from certifying Mr Biden’s 2020 election victory, Trump supporters attacked police, broke through barricades and swarmed the Capitol.
Trump had given an incendiary speech to supporters beforehand, repeating his false claims of widespread voting fraud and telling them to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell”.
Then, for a number of hours, he ignored requests for him to urge the mob to stop.
The ruling came on the eve of Super Tuesday – the day in the US presidential primary cycle when the most states hold party nominating contests.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
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