DENVER (LifeSiteNews) — The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that former U.S. President Donald Trump is ineligible to run for president in 2024 due to his alleged involvement in an “insurrection” and that his name should not appear on state ballots in the primaries. Trump’s team has vowed to immediately appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Colorado Supreme Court made its decision in a 4-3 ruling Tuesday, stating that an amendment to the U.S. Constitution approved in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War means that Trump is excluded from running for office. Fox News reported that the “ruling is stayed until January 4 because of likely appeals.”
In the ruling, the Colorado justices said that a “majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
Adopted in 1868, the 14th amendment bars from higher office anyone who swore an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” and later “engaged in insurrection or rebellion … or given aid or comfort to the enemies” of the nation. Democrats have argued that the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 was an “insurrection” that attempted to stop the peaceful transfer of power and that Trump was responsible for provoking it.
In October, attorney Eric Olson claimed that Trump had “summoned and organized the mob” at the Save America Rally at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, and that the Constitution therefore precludes him from holding political office,” the Associated Press reported.
READ: Trial begins in Colorado to keep Trump off the state’s 2024 ballot
The Colorado Supreme Court similarly declared that “the events of January 6 constituted an insurrection.” The ruling further stated that, due to its conclusions concerning the nature of Trump’s actions and the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, Trump’s name would not appear on the primary ballot in the Centennial State.
“Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot,” the Court declared.
Outrage in response to the ruling was swift.
Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio declared on X that the “U.S. has put sanctions on other countries for doing exactly what the Colorado Supreme Court has done today.”
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy vowed to drop out of the Colorado primary if Trump’s name doesn’t appear on the ballot and called on his fellow presidential hopefuls to do the same.
Trump’s campaign immediately blasted the Colorado Court’s ruling as a “flawed decision” handed down in support of “a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden.”
As LifeSiteNews previously reported, the case began as a lawsuit filed by the anti-Trump Washington, D.C.-based group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which sued on behalf of a group of six Colorado voters, including former officials at the federal, state and local levels. CREW has received financial backing from prominent left-wing billionaire George Soros’ Open Societies Foundation (formerly known as the Open Society Institute.)
“Democrat Party leaders are in a state of paranoia over the growing, dominant lead President Trump has amassed in the polls,” Trump’s campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, continued in the December 19 statement.
“They have lost faith in the failed Biden presidency and are now doing everything they can to stop the American voters from throwing them out of office next November,” he said.
Trump, who officially declared his bid for re-election in November and has since been hit with charges in four separate criminal cases, continues to significantly outpace his GOP competitors in the polls. Recent survey data also suggest that the former president is far ahead of current U.S. President Joe Biden. A recent Wall Street Journal poll saw Trump leading Biden by 47% to 43%.
In Cheung’s statement, he said the Trump campaign would “swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision.”
“We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these unAmerican lawsuits,” the statement concluded.
And this won’t be the first January 6-related case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court if the nation’s top judicial body agrees to take up the Trump team’s appeal.
Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to review a ruling by a Washington appeals court concerning felony charges of “obstruction of an official proceeding” that had been lodged against three alleged January 6 rioters, the Associated Press reported. The Court’s decision could roll back hundreds of felony charges against individuals connected with the January 6 riot, including Trump.