Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyers on Thursday brought his fight against a campaign to kick him off state presidential ballots for his actions involving the 2021 Capitol attack to the U.S. Supreme Court in a case with major implications for the November election.
The nine justices, three of whom Trump appointed, will hear arguments in his appeal of a lower court’s decision to disqualify him from Colorado’s Republican presidential primary ballot under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment after finding that he participated in an insurrection.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars from holding public 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.”
Trump is not expected to be present at the arguments scheduled for 10 a.m. ET (1500 GMT). Instead, he plans to start his day at his Florida home and travel to Nevada, according to a source familiar with his plans. Nevada on Thursday night holds a nominating caucus that Trump is expected to win handily as he cruises towards his party’s nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden on November 5.
The case calls on the Supreme Court to play a central role in a presidential contest unlike any since its landmark Bush v. Gore decision that handed Republican George W. Bush the presidency over Democrat Al Gore in 2000.
The justices also may soon confront another Trump-related case. Trump faces a Monday deadline to ask the Supreme Court to intervene after a U.S. appeals court rejected his claim for immunity in one of two cases in which he faces criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden.
