In the 2024 Colorado ballot decision, Alina Habba, a lawyer for Donald Trump, defended remarks implying that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh will “step up” and rule in favor of the 45th president.
During an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, Habba singled out Kavanaugh as one of the nine justices who should support Trump if the Supreme Court decides to reverse its December decision that barred the former president from running for office in Colorado.
As a result of the landmark decision that found his actions surrounding the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, Trump appealed the decision to the US Supreme Court. Anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after swearing to uphold the Constitution cannot run for office again, according to this section.
The Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority and three judges nominated by Trump to the bench—Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch—is expected to hear the case and decide whether the Colorado decision should be upheld or overturned.
In her interview with Hannity, Habba stated that Kavanaugh should rule in favor of Trump in the Colorado decision because the former president “went through hell” to get the judge appointed.
“It should be a slam dunk in the Supreme Court. I have faith in them. People like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place, he’ll step up,” Habba said. “Those people will step up not because they’re pro-Trump, but because they’re pro-law, because they’re pro-fairness, and the law on this is very clear.”
Several liberals criticized Habba’s remarks on social media, accusing her of attempting to pressure Kavanaugh to vote in favor of Trump or suggesting he would decide based on perceived loyalty to the former president.
“As I have stated multiple times, the Constitution and law speak for itself and I believe every justice will decide on this clear-cut issue fairly,” Habba told Newsweek.
“Left-wing media’s attempt to intimidate judges who have been put through rigorous vetting due to who they were appointed by is ridiculous, and that is exactly why I addressed it. This is about the constitution and due process, nothing else.”
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Lawyers for Trump petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court.
“In our system of ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people,’ Colorado’s ruling is not and cannot be correct,” attorneys for the former president wrote in the filing with the court obtained by CNN.
CNN reported that the nation’s highest court “is facing mounting pressure to settle the question of whether Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, can be disqualified from holding public office, as state courts and election officials have come to differing conclusions across the country. The first contests of the 2024 primary begin in weeks.”
The outlet noted further: “The high court is separately involved in other matters that could impact the federal criminal case against the former president. Trump’s appeal comes nearly a week after the Colorado GOP, which is also a party in the case, filed a separate appeal, and two weeks after the Colorado ruling came down. The ruling has been put on hold while appeals play out and Colorado’s top election official has already made clear that Trump’s name will be included on the state’s primary ballot when it’s certified on January 5 – unless the US Supreme Court says otherwise.”
Meanwhile, Fox News reported that Republicans are lining up behind Trump, calling the decision by the Colorado court wrong and unprecedented.
“Even if the Colorado Supreme Court were correct that President Trump cannot take office on Inauguration Day, that court had no basis to hold that he cannot run for office,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee, chaired by Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said in a filing with the Supreme Court.
Fox added: “Last month, the Colorado Supreme Court, in a 4-3 vote, overturned a lower court ruling that allowed Trump to appear on the ballot as a presidential candidate. In their opinion, the justices on the state’s high court wrote that Trump ‘incited and encouraged’ the use of violence to prevent the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021, when many of his followers stormed the U.S. Capitol.”
Since then, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has also removed Trump from that state’s ballot, citing the Colorado ruling.
Trump’s legal team, in its filing, cited Colorado Justice Carlos Samour.
“The decision to bar former President Donald J. Trump—by all accounts the current leading Republican presidential candidate (and reportedly the current leading overall presidential candidate) — from Colorado’s presidential primary ballot flies in the face of the due process doctrine,” Samour wrote in his dissent.
“Even if we are convinced that a candidate committed horrible acts in the past—dare I say, engaged in insurrection—there must be procedural due process before we can declare that individual disqualified from holding public office,” he added.
