RNC, 27 States Urge SCOTUS to Keep Trump on Ballot in Colorado or There Will Be 'Chaos in Our Country'

The Republican National Committee joined 27 GOP state attorneys general to file briefs Friday urging the Supreme Court to strike down the Colorado High Court's recent decision to keep Trump off the primary ballot because of dubious claims he violated the 14th Amendment and incited an "insurrection" on J6.

As we reported earlier, on Friday afternoon SCOTUS agreed to hear the case, which is expected to be ruled on relatively quickly.

READ: BREAKING: SCOTUS Agrees to Hear Trump Colorado Ballot Ban Case

The RNC filed a 34-page amicus brief, while the state AGs filed a 22-pager of their own. The RNC warned of chaos if the former President were to be banned from the ballot when he has neither been charged nor convicted of "insurrection":

In the RNC brief, the primary arm of the party called the Colorado Supreme Court's recent decision "historically implausible" and made with a "slew of legal errors that this Court should reject." It said the opinion violates the First Amendment rights of Republicans, as it interferes with political-party primaries.
The RNC also argued that the decision to keep Trump off of the GOP primary ballot "undermines the people’s right to judge who is best to represent them." And it claimed that if Trump is left off of the Colorado primary ballots there will be "chaos in our country" due to the "obvious risk of escalation as political opponents fight to have each other removed from the ballot."

BREAKING: A coalition of 27 states’ Attorneys General led by Indiana AG Todd Rokita and West Virginia AG Patrick Morrisey support Donald Trump’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to appear on the Colorado primary ballot

pic.twitter.com/YlyQwK35Ha— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) January 5, 2024

The brief also pointed out that if the Colorado Supreme Court's decision were allowed to stand, keeping people off the ballot will become a common political tactic. "That chaos is unlikely to be limited to a single candidate or election. Once state courts begin purging candidates from the ballot, political opponents will begin picking each other off, harming confidence in our electoral processes," they wrote.

RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel posted about the effort on social media, calling the 14th Amendment claim "an attack" on our system:

The @GOP is proud to file an amicus brief in the Supreme Court with the @NRCC to ensure that the American people have the right to choose their president.

The effort to remove Donald Trump from the presidential ballot is an attack on our electoral system.https://t.co/IOrKwDzjMM— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) January 5, 2024

The 27 GOP state attorneys general made similar arguments, saying that Colorado's decision will not impact just the Centennial State but the entire country as a whole:

In the state amicus brief led by Indiana Attorney General Theodore Rokita and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, the states argue in seeking the Supreme Court's "immediate intervention" that Colorado's decision "has vast consequences" beyond the Rocky Mountain State.
"The Colorado court’s decision will create widespread chaos. Most obviously, it casts confusion into an election cycle that is just weeks away. Beyond that, it upsets the respective roles of the Congress, the States, and the courts," wrote the coalition of 27 state Republican AGs and the GOP leaders of the Arizona state legislature.

The RNC and the state attorneys general are right -- Colorado's decision was truly deplorable, to use a word favored by Hillary Clinton, and would upend our political system if allowed to stand. Keeping candidates off the ballot is the method third-world dictators and folks like Vladimir Putin use to stay in power.

Ever since Donald Trump came down the golden escalator in 2015, Democrats have been screeching about how he's a "danger to democracy" -- but we're watching them attack our democratic institutions in real-time.

SCOTUS must put an end to this nonsense.

"Once state courts begin purging candidates from the ballot, political opponents will begin picking each other off, harming confidence in our electoral processes,"

In a sense, Obama started this, but using different tactics. His usual campaign method, used in 100 percent of his races, was to pry into the private records of his opponents.

One month before the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Obama was down in the polls, about to lose to Blair Hull, a multimillionaire securities trader. But then the Chicago Tribune leaked the claim that Hull’s second ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, had sought an order of protection against him during their 1998 divorce proceedings.
Those records were under seal, but as The New York Times noted: “The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had ‘worked aggressively behind the scenes’ to push the story.” Many people said Axelrod had “an even more significant role — that he leaked the initial story.”
Both Hull and his ex-wife opposed releasing their sealed divorce records, but they finally relented in response to the media’s hysteria — 18 days before the primary. Hull was forced to spend four minutes of a debate detailing the abuse allegation in his divorce papers, explaining that his ex-wife “kicked me in the leg and I hit her shin to try to get her to not continue to kick me.”
After having held a substantial lead just a month before the primary, Hull’s campaign collapsed with the chatter about his divorce. Obama sailed to the front of the pack and won the primary. Hull finished third with 10 percent of the vote.

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