A court in Denver (Colorado) on Friday rejected a request to exclude Donald Trump from the ballots in the Republican primaries for the 2024 presidential election in this western American state.
The historic indictment of the former president (at the federal level on 1er August then by the State of Georgia on August 14), for his allegedly illicit attempts to obtain the reversal of the results of the 2020 election, opened a legal debate on his possible ineligibility, leading to appeals in several states.
In her ruling, Judge Sarah Wallace ordered Colorado election officials “to place Donald J. Trump on the primary ballot” Republicans of 2024.
Mr. Trump’s campaign team welcomed the decision, saying it represented “another nail in the coffin of anti-American ballot challenges”.
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The petitioners, an anti-corruption citizen group called “Crew,” accused the former president of “incited a violent crowd” hundreds of his supporters to storm the Capitol, seat of Congress, on January 6, 2021, in order to prevent the certification of the victory of his Democratic opponent, current President Joe Biden.
The group of citizens invoked the 14e amendment to the American Constitution, adopted in 1868. This amendment provides for the exclusion from public responsibilities of any person who, after having taken an oath to defend the Constitution, has engaged in acts of “rebellion”.
This text, aimed at the time at supporters of the Southern Confederacy defeated during the Civil War (1861-1865), has been invoked at least eight times throughout American history, according to Crew.