Donald Trump celebrated a “big win” for the United States on Monday, after the Supreme Court rejected Colorado’s attempt to remove him from the Republican presidential primary ballot for allegedly engaging in rebellion.
“BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!” the former president, who is seeking reelection and is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, posted on his website, Truth Social.
The high-stakes decision in favor of the former president came on the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries, which are likely to solidify Trump’s path to the Republican nomination to face President Joe Biden in November.
It was the court’s most critical election case since it halted the Florida vote recount in 2000, when Republican George W. Bush was just ahead of Democrat Al Gore.
The nine justices debated whether Trump was ineligible to run on Colorado’s Republican presidential primary ballot since he participated in an insurrection — his followers’ assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The conservative-dominated court ruled 9-0 that “the judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court… cannot stand,” allowing 77-year-old Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to appear on the state’s primary ballot.
“All nine Members of the Court agree with that result,” they added.
Trump praised the verdict, calling it a “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!” in a post on his Truth Social website.
The issue resulted from a December ruling by Colorado’s state Supreme Court, one of the 15 states and territories voting on Super Tuesday.
The state court concluded, invoking the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, that Trump should be removed from the ballot for his involvement in the January 6 attack on Congress, when a crowd attempted to block certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits anybody from holding public office if they participated in “insurrection or rebellion” after previously promising to support and protect the Constitution.
However, during two hours of debate last month, both conservative and liberal justices on the US Supreme Court expressed concern about allowing individual states to pick which candidates can appear on the presidential ballot in November.