Veteran vote defender and founder of Democracy Docket Marc Elias, who argued 64 cases in Federal and State against Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and won all but one of them, stated yesterday while appearing with Alicia Menendez on MSNBC that although he thought that Colorado’s attempt to disqualify the Orange One from it’s 2024 ballot “was going to be long odds from the get-go,” he also stated that Trump lawyer Jonathan Mitchell’s assertion that January 6th was not an insurrection but the event was “shameful, criminal, and violent” could come back to haunt der Gropinfuhrer in upcoming criminal trials.
“Shameful, criminal, and violent” riot, of course, upends Trump’s characterization of the event as a “peaceful demonstration” and full of “love”.
“The Supreme Court was reviewing the decision by Colorado to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot under the Insurrection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment — and legal experts broadly believe the court is unlikely to uphold that decision. But that doesn’t mean Trump will get a complete victory here, Elias said.
“I think it was going to be long odds from the get-go,” said Elias. “But I don’t think that that means that the argument itself was a total loss. I think there were some things that came out of it that actually may wind up having some long-term consequences, including, by the way, Donald Trump’s lawyer saying that though January 6th was not an insurrection, the events were shameful, criminal, and violent. I think Donald Trump, in some other courtrooms, is going to be arguing that it was not criminal and violent.”
“Can we zoom in on that for a second?” said Menendez. “That was clearly a very strategic choice, right, to make a series of concession in those arguments, in some ways allowed him to place 1/6 aside because he knew it was not firm ground for him to be having 1/6 front and center. Do you think it was considered the way in which those remarks would then complicate some of these other legal cases?”
“Look, I think that, you know, to credit the lawyer for Donald Trump who argued the case today, I think he gave ground to win the case in front of him,” said Elias. “And you know, I can — I can understand that. He’s got nine justices looking at him today and figures we’ll worry about tomorrow tomorrow. That doesn’t mean when that tomorrow doesn’t come, right, tomorrow does come. But I think he made those concessions, whether it was playing this democracy card that may frankly come back to haunt him in some of the election cases that I and others litigate, or it is this violent point that, you know, Donald Trump is — has said it was a peaceful gathering.”
Here’s the YouTube video:
I suppose Mitchell concluded that arguing January 6th was not an insurrection would be enough of a flex without also trying to convince SCOTUS to ignore the evidence of their own eyes that the riot was anything less than shameful, criminal and violent.
And though he may have won on that point, his description of the event could hamper Trump’s lawyers, particularly in Judge Chutkan proceedings in Federal District Court to determine whether Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election.
In any case I fear Elias’ and most pundits are probably correct that SCOTUS will rule against Colorado in this case.
I mean when even Biden appointed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is convinced that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was crafted to prevent state legislatures from being taken over by Confederate Insurrectionists it looks as if we could possibly be looking at a 9-0 decision to reinstate Trump’s name to the ballot:
”Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, has said that a constitutional ban on insurrectionists taking office was created for state appointments, not the presidency, yet this has not been raised by Trump’s lawyer in his ballot ban challenge.
During oral arguments on Colorado’s ban on Trump’s inclusion on the state ballot, she told the former president’s lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, that she was surprised that the historical record was not a major pillar of his arguments for keeping Trump on the Colorado ballot.
Brown Jackson, a Biden appointee, said that the historic record shows that the ban on insurrectionists under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was introduced to stop former Confederates from taking positions in state government and then using that to reestablish the Confederacy, and didn’t seem to refer to the presidency.“
Although, based upon what I have read of the deliberations of the framers of the 14th Amendment, I disagree with Judge Brown Jackson, I must of course admit that she and her staff’s investigation of the history of the Amendment and understanding of the law must far exceed my own.
Either way it looks like a tough day in court, but I am glad Elias noted something that gives us hope for tomorrow.
Something I couldn’t understand was one of the justices asking why one state should be allowed to make a judgement that would affect all states. In fact, Colorado’s ruling to remove tRump from their ballot affects Colorado, not all states. Just because they take tRump off the ballot doesn’t mean he’s off in all states. Each state determines that. Another specious argument, if Colorado’s ruling stands, what if other states decide to take retaliatory action and remove Biden from their ballots for insurrection? We can’t choose to not follow laws just because somewhere down the line someone might do something. There are too many ‘ifs’ there and shouldn’t the court be concerned with the facts of this case? Deal with the ‘what ifs’ when/if they appear.
When I heard Justice Jackson’s question (yes, I listened live) I thought what the hell? You’re way smarter than that. Those who wrote and passed that amendment WERE in fact concerned about confederates getting into Congress, and worse. In fact the prospect was briefly discussed according to the record of the debate. I can’t recall the names of the two off the top of my head but one posed a question as to why the offices of President and Vice-President weren’t specifically named in the amendment. The response was basically look at the freaking language, THEY are covered just like everyone else!
It’s pretty clear as I’ve already said yesterday the Justices went into that hearing looking for a way out. A way not to offend Trump/MAGA. To let him run even though the Constitution and law disqualify him. I’m beyond disgusted with them all. Oh, they will rule against him on other matters as they have before, if not directly then indirectly. For example I’m awfully sure they will neither grant Cert on his immunity appeal or grant him a stay to prevent judge Chutkan from re-starting the Jan. 6 case. They have a golden opportunity to dump all the “blame” on the DC Circuit and let THEM take the heat.
Chickenshit behavior to be sure. They all wanted, even worked like hell (well, most of them) to get that title “Justice” which means they goddamn well should not only want the ball when the game is on the line, they should GRAB it. As the old saying goes “Winners want the ball.” SCOTUS is acting like a bunch of losers.
As I posted previously, the silver lining to this dark cloud is that it looks like Trump will be the republican candidate for the presidency. And he’s the weakest one they could put forward against competent Biden.
And if ‘gaffes’ and ‘age’ are going to be issues used against Biden, most people will take his side against Dementia Don.
Trump as candidate means we win.