Conservative lawyer George Conway warned on Saturday that former President Donald Trump faces a key problem when the U.S. Supreme Court contemplates his eligibility to be on the 2024 primary ballot ahead of this year’s election.
Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, has been kicked off the primary ballot in Maine and Colorado. The Colorado Supreme Court and Maine’s Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows ruled in December that the former president was barred from running for office, following his alleged actions surrounding the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on that day to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 win following baseless claims from Trump that the election was stolen via widespread voter fraud. The former president, meanwhile, has denied taking part in an insurrection.
Colorado’s Supreme Court and Bellow cited in their decisions Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which states that anyone who engages in an insurrection is banned from holding public office in the future.
Trump’s campaign called Maine’s ruling a “hostile assault on American democracy” and Colorado’s decision “completely flawed.” Trump has challenged Colorado’s ruling and now the Supreme Court is set to hear the case and decide whether the former president should be banned from holding future office. Oral arguments are set to begin on February 8.
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Speaking about the issue on MSNBC’s The Katie Phang Show on Saturday, Conway, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump and is the estranged husband to Trump’s former aide Kellyanne Conway, said, “We read the text of the statutes, we read the text of the Constitution and we try to interpret the words as they were understood when those words were written.
“And that’s the problem that Donald Trump has here is that the words are very simple and very clear, and in fact, they are clearer than other provisions of the 14th Amendment … Section III is rather narrow. It’s not hard to know what an insurrection is. It’s not hard to define an insurrection and not many people engage in insurrection. So, it’s really not a difficult, difficult provision to understand or to enforce.”
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign via email for comment.
The Court is currently packed with Trump-appointed judges, giving way to a 6-3 conservative majority. Despite Trump’s appointments of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, the Court has not sided with the former president on a number of issues. This includes refusing to hear cases challenging Biden’s 2020 election win.
Trump is currently facing federal charges for his actions surrounding the U.S. Capitol riot. In August 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted the former president on four federal felony counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has claimed that the case is politically motivated.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.