A U.S. Supreme Court brief filed on behalf of former President Donald Trump argues that he did not engage in insurrection and is not an “officer of the United States” as defined in the U.S. Constitution.
This is in response to the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling disqualifying Trump from appearing on the Colorado Republican presidential primary ballot under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The brief challenges the ruling on three main points, including Trump’s status as an “officer of the United States” and the assertion that his actions do not constitute insurrection.
“The court found by clear and convincing evidence that President Trump engaged in insurrection as those terms are used in Section Three,” the ruling states.
Trump’s brief noted that “the judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court should be reversed.”
Additionally, the brief argues that Section 3 should only be enforced through Congress’s chosen methods, not through a court.
“Section 3’s disqualification can apply only to those who have ‘previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States,’” the brief reads.
“It is undisputed that President Trump never took such an oath as a member of Congress, as a state legislator, or as a state executive or judicial officer. So section 3 cannot apply to President Trump unless the president qualifies as an ‘officer of the United States’ within the meaning of the Constitution,” it adds, stating that the “Constitution’s text and structure make clear that the president is not an ‘officer of the United States.’”
“This phrase ‘officer of the United States’ appears in three constitutional provisions apart from section 3, and each time the president is excluded,” the brief reads.
“The Court should also reverse because nothing that President Trump did in response to the 2020 election or on January 6, 2021, even remotely qualifies as “insurrection.” No prosecutor has attempted to charge President Trump with insurrection under 28 U.S.C. § 2383 in the three years since January 6, 2021, despite the relentless and ongoing investigations of President Trump. And for good reason: President Trump’s words that day called for peaceful and patriotic protest and respect for law and order,” it added.
“The text of section 3 does not confer enforcement authority on state courts or state officials, and it does not specify a process for determining whether an individual has ‘engaged in insurrection’ and disqualified himself from holding an enumerated office,” the brief read.
The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on this case on February 8.
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