US Supreme Court seems set to overturn disqualification of Donald Trump

America’s highest court has warned of dire consequences if Donald Trump is barred from running for re-election, suggesting they will overturn a move to disqualify him.

America’s highest court appears set to reject a state’s effort to kick Donald Trump off the ballot for this year’s presidential election.

During a hearing on Thursday (local time), the Supreme Court’s nine justices expressed scepticism about a Colorado court’s explosive ruling to disqualify the former president because he engaged in insurrection by sparking the January 6 riot after his 2020 defeat.

The justices challenged the right of a state to prevent Mr Trump – who is all but certain to be Republican candidate for a rematch against Joe Biden this November – running for the presidency again.

The Supreme Court’s decision is expected within weeks, averting a potential constitutional crisis and leaving it up to US voters to decide whether Mr Trump should return to power.

Anti-Trump demonstrators protest outside the US Supreme Court. Picture: Roberto Schmidt (AFP)

The Colorado ruling in December – which was followed by Maine’s secretary of state also removing Mr Trump from the ballot – concluded that the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment rendered a presidential candidate ineligible if they had “engaged in insurrection”.

Other states declined to follow suit as the former president appealed to the Supreme Court, where the unprecedented legal question was tested for the first time on Thursday.

Mr Trump, speaking after the hearing, blasted Colorado’s ruling as “election interference” and said the Supreme Court’s discussion was a “very beautiful process”.

“I thought the presentation today was a very good one – I think it was well received,” Mr Trump told reporters.

Mr Trump’s lawyer Jonathan Mitchell argued before the court that the events of January 6 – in which hundreds of his supporters invaded the US Capitol – “was not an insurrection”.

“This was a riot … The events were shameful, criminal, violent, all of those things, but did not qualify as an insurrection,” he said.

But the bulk of his case focused on challenging the right of a state to disqualify a candidate based on the 14th Amendment, as well as questioning whether it even applied to Mr Trump, given the clause did not specifically cite presidents but rather any “officer of the United States” who had taken an oath to support the Constitution.

In discussions with Mr Mitchell and Jason Murray, the lawyer for the Colorado voters who brought the case against Mr Trump, the justices broadly warned of troubling consequences if they did not reverse the state’s decision.

Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative appointed by President George W. Bush, suggested that upholding it would create an “unmanageable” situation in which a single state could determine a presidential candidate’s eligibility.

Chief Justice John Roberts pointed to a potentially “daunting consequence” that other states would follow suit with their own actions to block candidates from running for election.

Justice Elena Kagan, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, similarly said it would be “quite extraordinary” to allow Colorado’s decision to stand. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was put on the bench by Mr Trump, added: “It just doesn’t seem like a state call.”

Originally published as US Supreme Court seems set to overturn disqualification of Donald Trump