Bolton takes aim at CO Supreme Court decision booting Trump from primary ballot
The recent Colorado Supreme Court decision booting Donald Trump from the state's GOP primary ballot in 2024 has drawn intense criticism – and predictions of a quick judicial reversal -- even from one of the former president's most ardent opponents, as Breitbart reports.
Among those who have taken aim at the Colorado panel's ruling is former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who has never made any secret of his antipathy toward Trump.
During a Tuesday appearance on CNN's The Source, Bolton made his feelings about the decision known, declaring the opinion issued in the case to be “incoherent.”
Host Kaitlan Collins asked Bolton for his take on the use of language from a post-Civil War amendment to the Constitution as a means to justify Trump's removal from the Colorado primary ballot in the coming election.
“I think it's completely misplaced,” Bolton began. I think this Colorado Supreme Court decision is badly wrong for multiple reasons.”
Bolton continued, “Number one, the 14th Amendment provides that Congress can pass legislation to carry its provisions into effect, which Congress has done on many aspects. It has not put anything with respect to Section three on the books since just after the Civil War.”
The former Trump administration official did not stop there, adding, “Second, the idea that 50 different state courts can decide a question involving the highest elective office in the executive branch, interpreting the federal Constitution as to what constitutes an insurrection against the federal government is, is incoherent.”
Bolton later turned to what he believes is most likely to happen in the wake of the blockbuster ruling, saying, “So I'd be willing to bet a small amount of money here that the Supreme Court, if it gets to the merits of this, if it has to, will reverse.”
Any other course of action would, in Bolton's estimation, “sow chaos in elections as far as the eye could see.”
Trump's former National Security adviser was far from the only one with serious reservations about the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling, with Fox News contributor and George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley weighing in during a Wednesday appearance on The Brian Kilmeade Show, as the network reported.
Declaring himself deeply bothered by the court's decision, Turley declared the outcome to be “exceptionally dangerous.”
Turley went on, saying, “I mean, it is an anti-democratic opinion, and it could set us on a course that would be incredibly destabilizing for our system.”
Praising the longevity and relative stability of the American electoral system to date, Turley warned, “[t]his is introducing a new element. This is introducing the ability of states to effectively block the leading candidate for the presidency by barring them from ballots, and it will result in a tit-for-tat.”
Offering an injection of optimism, however, Turley added his belief that the U.S. Supreme Court “will make fast work of this,” but whether his and Bolton's hunches to that effect prove prescient is something that remains to be seen.