In a discussion this Thursday on MSNBC, conservative lawyer George Conway — known in part for opposition to Donald Trump from within right-wing politics — said that the case the former president is presenting to the U.S. Supreme Court to argue for staying on the ballot in Colorado looks “terrible.”
Conway and former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who appeared together on that episode of “Morning Joe,” both pointed out how Trump’s arguments to the nation’s highest court don’t even begin with the contention that he didn’t engage in insurrection, a question that has driven the entire case against him. Specifically, he was challenged over argued ties to the violence in D.C. of January 6, 2021, which Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a group of individual Coloradans, and others said implicated key provisions of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Those guidelines bar individuals who previously took an oath of office and then engaged in insurrection from from later holding various government roles once again.
“He’s basically just throwing stuff up at the wall […] and seeing what would stick,” Conway said, adding: “The fifth point in this brief — point five, Roman numeral five, is he didn’t engage in insurrection. It’s not number one. And the reason is, it’s because his arguments are very, very weak. If you look at the question of, in terms of should President Trump be removed from the ballot, it’s kind of a shocking notion to those of us who haven’t lived in an era — hadn’t lived until now in an era where public officials engage in insurrection. But it was familiar to the people who enacted the 14th Amendment. And when you go through the issues, one by one by one, the way lawyers are supposed to, his case looks terrible.”
A similar challenge to Trump’s eligibility for the ballot in Maine also looks set to soon reach the U.S. Supreme Court after the northeastern jurisdiction’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows issued an initial decision that would block Trump from ballots. Watch the MSNBC segment below:
