A Colorado judge has rejected an attempt to remove former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 primary ballot based on the claim that he is constitutionally barred from office because of the January 6 insurrection.
I hate to say this, but the judge is right and pretty much everyone on this thread is wrong.
What she’s saying is that she believes that he engaged in insurrection, but that her belief is not sufficient to keep him off the ballot. And she’s right.
It’s going to have to be an established fact that he engaged in insurrection, and in a court setting, that means that he’s going to have to be convicted.
Not just charged, and not just pretty obviously guilty - convicted.
Like it or not, just like anyone else, as far as a court is concerned, he’s innocent until proven guilty.
A Colorado judge has ruled that former President Donald Trump “engaged in an insurrection” on January 6, 2021, but rejected an attempt to remove him from the state’s 2024 primary ballot, finding that the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban” doesn’t apply to presidents
Wallace concluded that “Trump engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 through incitement, and that the First Amendment does not protect Trump’s speech” at the Ellipse that day. She also found that Trump “acted with the specific intent to disrupt the Electoral College certification of President Biden’s electoral victory through unlawful means.”
The provision explicitly bans insurrectionists from serving as US senators, representatives, and even presidential electors – but it does not say anything about presidents. It says it covers “any office, civil or military, under the United States,” and Wallace ruled that this does not include the office of the presidency.
“After considering the arguments on both sides, the Court is persuaded that ‘officers of the United States,’ did not include the President of the United States,” she wrote. “It appears to the Court that for whatever reason the drafters of Section Three did not intend to include a person who had only taken the Presidential Oath.”
Please reread the article. I’ve quoted the relevant sections. The ruling has nothing to do with Trump needing to be convicted. The judge explicitly states that she believes that the office of the president is not covered by the phrase “any office, civil or military, under the United States” and therefore is not covered by section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
This ruling benefits Trump to the detriment of us all. The ruling seems to be grounded in the idea that the president is above the law. This ruling is a symptom of the fascist movement that is trying to take over our country. We can not afford to misunderstand this ruling. We need to see it for what it is, another blow to the foundations of our democracy. edit: typo
At the time I posted that response, the article included a whole section of her ruling in which she said that it must be a certain fact that he engaged in insurrection, and that it cannot yet be called a certain fact, and that she is not empowered to decide that it is - that that’s a matter for the appropriate courts to decide.
And all of that is now gone.
I’ll have to see if I can find it elsewhere, because it was there.
I would be interested to see whatever article or version of an article that you saw. I recommend googling whatever phrases from the article you can remember and also checking the Wayback Machine. Their web scrappers might have picked up an earlier version of the article.
I put the snapshots in diff checker and they seem to be the same. I then put one of the snapshots against the current article based on text I got from Reading Mode and while they are different, they don’t seem to be different in the way you are describing.
Yeah - I already did a rudimentary version of that (just searching - not going through the Wayback Machine though, and thanks for doing that), and didn’t find anything
I’m positive it was there. My first reaction was actually that the judge must’ve come up with some bullshit excuse to not make the obvious ruling, likely because she didn’t have the guts to go through with it, either because she didnt want to be the focus of a legal system that would certainly be shook up by it, or because she didn’t want to be targeted by some violent fuckwit Trump supporter.
But then I read the article and switched entirely. I wish I could remember the precise wording, but in effect she said that it had to be an established fact that he engaged in insurrection, and that it was not yet an established fact, and not within the bounds of this case to make that ruling. So I wrote my response.
Then I got off the internet, gamed for a while, and went to bed.
And woke up this morning to… this. And that’s unfortunately the extent of my knowledge on the matter.
Was I confused? Maybe, but I tend not to think so, not (just) because my ego prefers that view, but because what I read was sufficient to make my own view do a 180.
But if that bit about established fact really was there, where did it go? And why? And how is it not just gone, but nowhere else I’ve been able to find?
“What she’s saying is that she believes that he engaged in insurrection, but that her belief is not sufficient to keep him off the ballot. And she’s right.”
Where did she say this? From the court order:
“The Court further concludes that the events on and around January 6, 2021, easily satisfy this definition of insurrection.”
That’s not the judge’s personal opinion, that’s the finding of the court. Further, the order explicitly says that Trump would not have to be convicted in order to be kept off the ballot:
“The Court does note that at no point in this proceeding has Trump (or any other party) argued that some type of appropriate criminal conviction is a necessary precondition to disqualification under Section Three. There is nothing in the text of Section Three suggesting that such is required, and the Court has found no case law or historical source suggesting that a conviction is a required element of disqualification.”
The idea that a criminal conviction is necessary is so much without legal basis that even Trump’s lawyers didn’t try to argue that. The only reason that the judge didn’t bar Trump from the ballot is that she doesn’t believe that Section 3 of the fourteenth amendment applies to the presidency. The order is fairly clear that she does feel that there is sufficient evidence that he engaged in insurrection in order to keep him off the ballot, but only if he were running for a different office.
At the time I posted that response, the article included a section in which the judge went on at fairly great length about the need for it to be a fact that he engaged in insurrection, and made the point that it was not yet a legal fact and it was not within her authority to declare it to be such.
And sometime between last night and this morning, that all vanished.
I have no idea what’s going on with that, but it was there. I didn’t just make it up - I wrote my response based on what I read, 14 hours ago.
That’s not what the ruling says. She ruled that he did engage in an insurrection as a matter of fact but that the 14th amendment doesn’t apply to him as a matter of law because the president isn’t an officer of the United States.
No, she did rule that he engaged in insurrection, and would have removed him from the ballot except she didn’t think the wording of the 14th amendment applied specifically to presidents (just all other elected and appointed offices). Which is an asinine reading.
I did read the text, and at the time I posted that response, it included an entire section in which the judge said that it had to be a certain fact that he engaged in insurrection and it was not yet an established fact and not within her authority to establish it as a fact - that that was up to the appropriate courts to decode.
And all of that has apparently since been removed from the article.
It isn’t up to the judge to determine if he’s on the ballot. It’s literally against the 14th amendment. If she userps the constitution’s authority, sge should be removed,
THOSE are the actual rules. Stop being fucking pathetic LOSERS in the face of fascism. This is fucking ridiculous. You’re playing civil with insurrectionists. Wake. The. Fuck. Up. They are SPECIFICALLY not civil people.
No, the actual ruling wasn’t nuanced at all. The commenter you replied to made up a different argument for the judge, not one she actually used. It’s much dumber. Read the article. Commenter above you apparently didn’t.
I hate to say this, but the judge is right and pretty much everyone on this thread is wrong.
What she’s saying is that she believes that he engaged in insurrection, but that her belief is not sufficient to keep him off the ballot. And she’s right.
It’s going to have to be an established fact that he engaged in insurrection, and in a court setting, that means that he’s going to have to be convicted.
Not just charged, and not just pretty obviously guilty - convicted.
Like it or not, just like anyone else, as far as a court is concerned, he’s innocent until proven guilty.
Please reread the article. I’ve quoted the relevant sections. The ruling has nothing to do with Trump needing to be convicted. The judge explicitly states that she believes that the office of the president is not covered by the phrase “any office, civil or military, under the United States” and therefore is not covered by section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
This ruling benefits Trump to the detriment of us all. The ruling seems to be grounded in the idea that the president is above the law. This ruling is a symptom of the fascist movement that is trying to take over our country. We can not afford to misunderstand this ruling. We need to see it for what it is, another blow to the foundations of our democracy. edit: typo
Something fishy is going on here.
At the time I posted that response, the article included a whole section of her ruling in which she said that it must be a certain fact that he engaged in insurrection, and that it cannot yet be called a certain fact, and that she is not empowered to decide that it is - that that’s a matter for the appropriate courts to decide.
And all of that is now gone.
I’ll have to see if I can find it elsewhere, because it was there.
I would be interested to see whatever article or version of an article that you saw. I recommend googling whatever phrases from the article you can remember and also checking the Wayback Machine. Their web scrappers might have picked up an earlier version of the article.
https://archive.org/web/
I looked up the CNN article. This is what they had.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231118000000*/https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/politics/trump-colorado-ballot-14th-amendment-insurrection/index.html
12:19 snapshot
23:21 snapshot
I put the snapshots in diff checker and they seem to be the same. I then put one of the snapshots against the current article based on text I got from Reading Mode and while they are different, they don’t seem to be different in the way you are describing.
Yeah - I already did a rudimentary version of that (just searching - not going through the Wayback Machine though, and thanks for doing that), and didn’t find anything
I’m positive it was there. My first reaction was actually that the judge must’ve come up with some bullshit excuse to not make the obvious ruling, likely because she didn’t have the guts to go through with it, either because she didnt want to be the focus of a legal system that would certainly be shook up by it, or because she didn’t want to be targeted by some violent fuckwit Trump supporter.
But then I read the article and switched entirely. I wish I could remember the precise wording, but in effect she said that it had to be an established fact that he engaged in insurrection, and that it was not yet an established fact, and not within the bounds of this case to make that ruling. So I wrote my response.
Then I got off the internet, gamed for a while, and went to bed.
And woke up this morning to… this. And that’s unfortunately the extent of my knowledge on the matter.
Was I confused? Maybe, but I tend not to think so, not (just) because my ego prefers that view, but because what I read was sufficient to make my own view do a 180.
But if that bit about established fact really was there, where did it go? And why? And how is it not just gone, but nowhere else I’ve been able to find?
Damned if I know…
“What she’s saying is that she believes that he engaged in insurrection, but that her belief is not sufficient to keep him off the ballot. And she’s right.”
Where did she say this? From the court order:
“The Court further concludes that the events on and around January 6, 2021, easily satisfy this definition of insurrection.”
That’s not the judge’s personal opinion, that’s the finding of the court. Further, the order explicitly says that Trump would not have to be convicted in order to be kept off the ballot:
“The Court does note that at no point in this proceeding has Trump (or any other party) argued that some type of appropriate criminal conviction is a necessary precondition to disqualification under Section Three. There is nothing in the text of Section Three suggesting that such is required, and the Court has found no case law or historical source suggesting that a conviction is a required element of disqualification.”
The idea that a criminal conviction is necessary is so much without legal basis that even Trump’s lawyers didn’t try to argue that. The only reason that the judge didn’t bar Trump from the ballot is that she doesn’t believe that Section 3 of the fourteenth amendment applies to the presidency. The order is fairly clear that she does feel that there is sufficient evidence that he engaged in insurrection in order to keep him off the ballot, but only if he were running for a different office.
At the time I posted that response, the article included a section in which the judge went on at fairly great length about the need for it to be a fact that he engaged in insurrection, and made the point that it was not yet a legal fact and it was not within her authority to declare it to be such.
And sometime between last night and this morning, that all vanished.
I have no idea what’s going on with that, but it was there. I didn’t just make it up - I wrote my response based on what I read, 14 hours ago.
That’s not what the ruling says. She ruled that he did engage in an insurrection as a matter of fact but that the 14th amendment doesn’t apply to him as a matter of law because the president isn’t an officer of the United States.
No, she did rule that he engaged in insurrection, and would have removed him from the ballot except she didn’t think the wording of the 14th amendment applied specifically to presidents (just all other elected and appointed offices). Which is an asinine reading.
Are you fucking high, or simply didn’t read the actual text in the slightest?
I did read the text, and at the time I posted that response, it included an entire section in which the judge said that it had to be a certain fact that he engaged in insurrection and it was not yet an established fact and not within her authority to establish it as a fact - that that was up to the appropriate courts to decode.
And all of that has apparently since been removed from the article.
Which is… odd, to say the least.
It isn’t up to the judge to determine if he’s on the ballot. It’s literally against the 14th amendment. If she userps the constitution’s authority, sge should be removed,
THOSE are the actual rules. Stop being fucking pathetic LOSERS in the face of fascism. This is fucking ridiculous. You’re playing civil with insurrectionists. Wake. The. Fuck. Up. They are SPECIFICALLY not civil people.
Is she not a reasonable person?
…and there’s the nuance I was looking for.
Good on ya.
No, the actual ruling wasn’t nuanced at all. The commenter you replied to made up a different argument for the judge, not one she actually used. It’s much dumber. Read the article. Commenter above you apparently didn’t.
Can you expand on what you mean when you say nuance and how it relates to the above comment?