Left-wing strategists and pundits are attempting to sway members of the Supreme Court through a concerted PR campaign in the hopes that the court will allow a decision by the Colorado Supreme Court to toss former President Donald Trump from the state’s ballot to stand.
These efforts appear to be focused on Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by Trump, as Kavanaugh has previously ruled against Trump.
“In our system of government, as this Court has often stated, no one is above the law,” Kavanaugh wrote in support of a ruling in 2020 that allowed the Manhattan district attorney to request Trump’s financial records as part of its investigation into his real estate company. “That principle applies, of course, to a President.”
Lisa Rubin, a legal pundit featured on several media outlets, including MSNBC, has cited such language to insist that for Kavanaugh to remain consistent, he would need to rule against Trump in the Colorado Supreme Court case.
“And it looks like Kavanaugh’s commitment to that principle is going to be tested in the coming weeks,” Rubin claimed on X.
A New York Times piece noted that though Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court, including Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Kavanaugh, all three have sided with Trump fewer times in decisions than justices like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
The Supreme Court of Colorado tossed Trump from its state ballots after claiming he engaged in insurrection on January 6, 2021, and was therefore disqualified per Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The ruling is stayed pending appeal, and it is anticipated that the U.S. Supreme Court will take it up after Christmas.
However, federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani threw cold water on the notion that the Republican-appointed block of the Supreme Court would leave the former president hanging.
“Given the makeup of the Supreme Court and the legal and political considerations, I think the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling will be overturned, even though Trump did engage in an insurrection,” Rahmani opined to Newsweek.
Rahmani added, “Colorado was always the best venue for the 14th Amendment litigants because the secretary of state there has an affirmative duty to disqualify constitutionally prohibited candidates and because the Colorado Supreme Court justices were all appointed by Democrat governors. That won’t be the same in the conservative U.S. Supreme Court.”
