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Justices reverse Colorado’s decision to exclude Republican front-runner in accordance with 14th Amendment clause barring insurrectionists from running for public office
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Trump rants about upcoming immunity battle following SCOTUS decision
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has been handed a legal victory as justices at the US Supreme Court will let him appear on this year’s ballot papers as he closes in on his party’s nomination.
Mr Trump challenged the ground-breaking decision by the Colorado Supreme Court, which found in December that he should be ineligible to run for the White House again or take part in the state’s primary – one of 16 taking place tomorrow on Super Tuesday – citing an anti-insurrectionist clause housed within the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
Maine and Illinois followed Colorado’s example and America’s highest court heard oral arguments on the matter on 8 February, with justices strongly signalling their support for Mr Trump’s arguments. In the end, it was a unanimous decision on the part of the justices.
On Truth Social, Mr Trump celebrated a “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!” before giving a meandering speech thanking the court and pushing his case for presidential immunity.
The former president picked up three further primary wins over the weekend but lost the DC contest to rival Nikki Haley.
Meanwhile, former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg is expected to plead guilty to perjury.
The estate of the late Sinéad O’Connor has censured former US President Donald Trump’s use of “Nothing Compares 2 U” at his political rallies.
Trump – the 2024 Republican Party frontrunner – has played the Irish singer-songwriter’s 1990 hit song at his most recent political events in North Carolina and Maryland.
In a joint statement, O’Connor’s estate and her record label, Chrysalis, demanded that Trump “desist from using her music immediately”.
Inga Parkel has the story…
‘It is no exaggeration to say that Sinéad would’ve been disgusted, hurt and insulted to have her work misrepresented in this way,’ O’Connor’s estate said
With the Supreme Court set to hear oral arguments regarding presidential immunity on 22 April, Donald Trump is keen to get his message out there no matter how flawed it might be.
He wrote on Truth Social this afternoon:
Without Presidential Immunity, a President will not be able to properly function, or make decisions, in the best interest of the United States of America. Presidents will always be concerned, and even paralyzed, by the prospect of wrongful prosecution and retaliation, after they leave office. This could actually lead to extortion and blackmail of a President. The other side would say, “If you don’t do something, just the way we want it, we are going to go after you when you leave office, or perhaps even sooner.” A President has to be free to determine what is right for our Country with no undue pressure…
Page 2: Without Immunity, the Presidency, as we know it, will no longer exist. Many actions for the benefit of our Country will not be taken. This is in no way what the Founders had in mind. Legal Experts and Scholars have stated that the President must have Full Presidential Immunity. A President must be free to make proper decisions. His mind must be clear, and he must not be guided by fear of retribution!
USA Today columnist Rex Huppke noted after the former president’s lunchtime remarks at Mar-a-Lago that Mr Trump appeared to be “conflating presidential immunity with a bunch or stuff (sexual abuse, defamation, fraud) that he did prior to being president” when he talked about the various cases against him.
Treasury minister Bim Afolami has defended a tweet he made about Donald Trump, calling the former US President “a cancer”. Mr Afolami was confronted about the tweet he made back in 2021, when he appeared on Nick Ferrari’s LBC breakfast show on Monday (4 March). The MP insisted the UK will have a good relationship with whoever is elected US President in November, when the LBC presenter said: “I wonder how a tweet of yours from a few years back helps that relationship…” After reading out Mr Afolami’s previous tweet, Mr Ferrari asked: “Very personal, so I’ll ask for a third time, is it appropriate? Mr Afolami replied: “I think it was appropriate.”
A former presidential aide to Donald Trump has said that he is now “not as sharp” as he was during the 2016 election.
Alyssa Farah Griffin said that the former president was “not the strongest fighter the Republicans could have right now” and that he had always had problems recalling facts or names.
It comes as questions about the mental fitness of Mr Trump, 77, and President Joe Biden, 81, continue to swirl. Despite this an all-but-certain rematch between the two men looms in November.
Mike Bedigan has the story:
Alyssa Farah Griffin said that the former president was ‘not the strongest fighter the Republicans could have right now’
A majority of voters – 73 per cent – say that President Joe Biden is too old to be an effective president. Forty-two per cent say the same about former President Donald Trump.
In a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted late last month, 47 per cent of survey respondents strongly agreed with the statement that Mr Biden is too old to be effective, while 26 per cent somewhat agreed. Fourteen per cent somewhat disagreed, and 11 per cent strongly disagreed.
For Mr Trump, 21 per cent strongly agreed that he’s too old, another 21 per cent somewhat agreed, 23 per cent somewhat disagreed, and 32 per cent strongly disagreed.
Gustaf Kilander has the details:
Biden, the oldest serving president in US history, is 81, and Trump, the third oldest president in US history, is 77
As the interest racks up on the $464m he owes following the verdict in his New York civil fraud trial, Donald Trump continues to rage against the legal system in a lengthy post on Truth Social.
Here’s what the former president had to say:
The widespread, radical attack against me, my family, and my supporters has now devolved to new, un-American depths, at the hands of a DERANGED New York State Judge, doing the bidding of a completely biased and corrupt “Prosecutor,” Letitia James, who ran for office based on a “GET TRUMP” platform, before even knowing anything about me. This action is a refutation of my status as the leading Candidate for President of the United States, including with a substantial lead over Joe Biden. It is a terrible reminder that the Radical Left Democrats will stop at nothing in trying to prevent me, and the American people, from winning the 2024 Presidential Election. Regardless of Party, we cannot let this happen in the United States of America!…
Page 2: As my lead in the polls over Joe Biden continues to skyrocket, these Corrupt and Highly Political Prosecutors and Judges are getting more and more desperate and dangerous. We are rapidly becoming a Communist Country, and my Civil Rights have been taken away from me. The New York State Attorney General went before a Highly Politicized Democrat Judge, who refused allowing the case to go to the Commercial Division, where it belonged, to simply rule, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, that I committed fraud, which is both ridiculous and untrue. As an example, this Democrat Operative valued Mar-a-Lago, the most spectacular and valuable property in Palm Beach, Florida, to be worth as low as $18 Million, when in actuality, it could be worth almost 100 times that amount. He hated everything about me at a level that I have never seen before, even beyond the hatred of that displayed by Letitia James…
Page 3: There was no trial and no jury for the supposed “wrongdoing” OF FULLY PAYING BACK SOPHISTICATED WALL STREET BANKS IN FULL, WITH INTEREST, WITH NO DEFAULTS, AND WITH NO VICTIMS. These Banks were represented by the largest, most sophisticated Law Firms in the Country. All Financial Statements had Full Protective Disclaimer Clauses. This is Democrat Political Lawfare, and a Witch Hunt at a level never seen before. It is an attempt to badly injure the opposing Party’s Leading, by far, Political Candidate. Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before. My Civil Rights have been violated, and some Appellate Court, whether Federal or State, must reverse this horrible, un-American decision. If they can do this to me, they can do this to YOU!
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Sunday she no longer feels bound by a pledge that required all GOP contenders to support the party’s eventual nominee in order to participate in the primary debates.
The Republican National Committee had made the pledge a prerequisite for all candidates, and nearly every major contender signed, except for Donald Trump, the current front-runner, who skipped the debates.
When Haley, Trump’s lone remaining major challenger for the nomination, was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether she was compelled to honor that commitment, she said, “No. I think I’ll make what decision I want to make.”
She said “the RNC is now not the same RNC” as it was at the time of the debates. She also maintained that she has always said she had “serious concerns” about Trump, for whom she served as U.N. ambassador.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley says she no longer feels bound by a pledge that required all GOP contenders to support the party’s eventual nominee in order to participate in the primary debates
Alex Woodward writes:
The US Supreme Court’s reversal of a landmark court decision in Colorado will keep Donald Trump on the state’s presidential election ballots and on the ballots in a handful of other states where he was also disqualified from the presidency under a constitutional clause barring insurrectionists from office.
It was a unanimous 9-0 decision from the justices, on its face. They agreed that individual states can’t unilaterally remove candidates for federal office from their ballots. But that’s about as far as they got to being on the same page.
Instead, what emerged was a 5-4 conservative majority decision that went far beyond that of the liberal minority, stating that only Congress can decide whether insurrectionists are disqualified from federal office.
What this means is that any candidate who tries to overthrow the government can still get elected to the presidency – just so long as they have the support of the controlling political party in Congress.
Continue reading…
In a split ruling, five conservative justices decided that any candidate who tries to overthrow the government can still get elected, as long as they have the support of Congress. Alex Woodward reports
Nikki Haley’s balancing act over the issue of January 6 and the 2020 election continued on Sunday as she appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press and faced questions about the attack on the Capitol from Kristin Welker.
Ms Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations under Mr Trump’s presidency, drove a careful edge between opposing Mr Trump’s actions before and during the riot as she warned that the former president would have to answer in court for his actions. She took no position on whether the former president was guilty of a crime for not calling off the mob after rioters began attacking and injuring police on the grounds of the Capitol, only calling it “questionable” and stating that the courts would decide the answer.
“I’m not a lawyer,” she insisted, after explaining: “I think he should have said something earlier. I think he should have stopped it when it started.”
Continue reading…
Nikki Haley’s balancing act over the issue of January 6 and the 2020 election continued on Sunday as she appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press and faced questions about the attack on the Capitol from Kristin Welker.
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Former US president Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a Super Tuesday campaign rally in Richmond, Virginia, on Satruday 2 March
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