This appeal marks the latest episode in a legal debate provoked by the historic indictment of the former Republican president on August 1 for his alleged illicit attempts to obtain the reversal of the results of the vote, won by his Democratic opponent Joe Biden. .
The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (Crew) cites in support of its action the 14th amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1868, excluding from all public responsibility anyone, after having taken an oath to defend the Constitution, would have engaged in acts of “rebellion”.
This text, aimed at supporters of the Southern Confederacy at the time, has been used at least eight times in history, according to Crew, but only once in more than a century, in 2022.
It was a local official in New Mexico (southwest) found guilty of participating in the assault, by hundreds of supporters of Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, of the Capitol, seat of Congress, in order to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory there.
The petitioners argue that the incumbent president’s attempts to reverse the 2020 results “climaxed on January 6, 2021” in his involvement in “a violent rebellion on Capitol Hill,” and constitute a violation of his oath when taken four years earlier to “defend the Constitution”.
They therefore call on the Colorado electoral authorities to withdraw the ballots in the name of Donald Trump for the Republican primaries, of which he is currently the arch-favorite, as well as any other subsequent ballot in the State.
Similar proceedings have been initiated in other States.
Main legal cases facing Donald Trump, former President of the United States, as of August 24, 2023PHOTO AFP / Olivia BUGAULT, Sophie RAMIS
The relevance of the 14th Amendment in this context has been stirring discussions among renowned jurists for several weeks.
Two of them, the former federal judge Michael Luttig and the professor of constitutional law Laurence Tribe, thus affirm in an article published in August in the monthly The Atlantic that this amendment applies to Donald Trump and “makes him ineligible for forever to become president again”, without even a criminal conviction being necessary.
The person concerned, targeted by four criminal charges, including two for his actions during the 2020 election – one at the federal level and one in the state of Georgia (southeast) – recently rose up on his network Truth social against these arguments “without legal basis for the presidential election of 2024”, according to him.
2023-09-06 19:53:56
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