Alina Habba, an attorney representing Donald Trump, justified comments made during the Colorado ballot decision in 2024 that suggested Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the United States Supreme Court would “step up” and rule in the 45th president’s favor.
In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Habba singled out Justice Brett Kavanaugh as one of the nine judges who ought to back Trump in the event that the Supreme Court decides to overturn its December ruling prohibiting the former president from seeking reelection in Colorado.
Trump appealed the landmark ruling to the US Supreme Court, which held that his conduct leading up to the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. This clause states that no one who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after pledging to preserve the Constitution is eligible to seek for office again.
“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.”
Habba’s comments on social media drew criticism from a number of lefties who said that she was trying to persuade Kavanaugh to support Trump or that his decision would be based only on his apparent allegiance to the outgoing 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.”
Trump’s attorneys filed a petition with the US Supreme Court to reverse a Colorado Supreme Court decision.
“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.
As state courts and election officials across the nation have reached different conclusions, 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.” The 2024 primary races kick off in a few weeks.
The site went on to say, “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.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.”
Republicans are standing by Trump, according to Fox News, who described the Colorado court’s ruling as incorrect 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.”
Citing the Colorado decision, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has since eliminated Trump from the state’s ballot as well.
In their filing, Trump’s legal team referenced Colorado Judge 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.
