Photo: Joseph Prezioso Agence France-Presse L’ex-président américain et candidat à l’investiture républicaine Donald Trump arrive sur scène pour prendre la parole devant des partisans lors d’un événement de campagne à Durham, dans le New Hampshire, le 16 décembre 2023.
Former US President Donald Trump on Wednesday asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a decision by Colorado's highest court, which caused a sensation by declaring him ineligible for president because of his actions during the storming of the Capitol.
A second state, Maine, also considered that the great Republican favorite for next November's presidential election was “unfit to serve as president” because of the attack on the Capitol, carried out in 2021 by supporters of Mr. Trump who contested the election of Democrat Joe Biden.
Donald Trump has already appealed the Maine decision. On Wednesday, his lawyers asked the United States Supreme Court – three of whose nine justices were appointed by the ex-president – to review the Colorado case and invalidate the decision of the Supreme Court of that state from the west.
They say the ruling, if upheld, “will mark the first time in U.S. history that the justice system has prevented voters from casting their ballots for a major party's leading presidential candidate.”
“The question of eligibility to serve as President of the United States is properly reserved for Congress – not the state courts – to consider and decide,” they said. added.
Also read
- An American presidential election which begins in a climate of distrust
- Prosecutors urge appeals court to reject Trump's immunity requests
- Five questions to understand Trump's disqualification in Colorado
- Editorial | Failing the danger of dictatorship in the United States
The decisions in both Maine and Colorado relied on the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which excludes from public liability anyone who, after taking an oath to defend the Constitution, engages in acts of “rebellion” or “insurrection”.
Mr. Trump's lawyers also argued in their motion that Section 3 of that amendment did not apply to him as president, that January 6 was not an “insurrection » and that the tycoon had “in no way participated in an insurrection”.
The decisions of Maine and Colorado relate only to the Republican primaries held in these two states.
As long as legal proceedings continue, ballots must still include the name of the ex-president.
On January 6, 2021, hundreds of supporters of Donald Trump violently stormed the Capitol, the sanctuary of American democracy, to try to prevent the certification of the victory of his opponent, Joe Biden.
Donald Trump and his most fervent supporters still dispute, without proof, the results of the 2020 election.