(WASHINGTON) — Three women who served in the Trump White House are sounding the alarm on what a second Donald Trump term could mean for the country, with one saying it could “mean the end of American democracy as we know it.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin, Cassidy Hutchinson and Sarah Matthews sat down with ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent and “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl to discuss their roles in speaking out against Trump in an interview that will air Sunday on “This Week.”
It marks the first time Griffin, Hutchinson and Matthews, who each cooperated with the House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation of Trump’s conduct following the 2020 election, discuss their story together.
You can watch more of Jonathan Karl’s interview with Alyssa Farah Griffin, Cassidy Hutchinson and Sarah Matthews on “This Week” Sunday morning. Check local listings.
“Fundamentally, a second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly,” Griffin said. “We all witnessed him trying to steal a democratic election before and go to historic and unconstitutional lengths to do so.”
“And that just shows that he’s willing to basically break every barrier to get into power and to stay into power,” she continued. “But also, I’m very concerned about what the term would actually look like.”
Griffin served as communications director in the Trump White House until she resigned in December 2020, just after the presidential election. She’s now a co-host on ABC’s “The View.”
Griffin sat for a private behind-the-scenes interview with the Jan. 6 committee, while Hutchinson, a former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Matthews, a former White House deputy press secretary, testified publicly at televised hearings in addition to closed-door testimony.
Most transcripts of the Jan. 6 committee’s closed-door witness interviews were eventually published, but not all those involving Hutchinson.
“We don’t need to speculate what a second Trump term would look like because we already saw it play out,” Matthews told Karl. “To this day, he still doubles down on the fact that he thinks that the election was stolen and fraudulent. And then his rhetoric has just gotten increasingly erratic. I mean, he has literally called for things like doing away with parts of the Constitution, wanting to weaponize the DOJ to enact revenge on his political enemies.”
Hutchinson, who became a main target of Trump’s ire following her bombshell testimony, highlighted Trump’s recent remarks on whether he’d rule like a dictator if elected in 2024.
“The fact that he feels that he needs to lean into being a dictator alone shows that he is a weak and feeble man who has no sense of character and integrity and has no sense of leadership,” she said, a sentiment with which Griffin agreed.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing with regard to Jan. 6.
The Trump campaign responded to ABC’s interview with a statement calling the women “ungrateful grifters” who “used the opportunities given to them by President Trump” and had gone “full Judas.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Friday condemned Russia for launching its “largest aerial assault on Ukraine” since the start of the war, warning that Russian President Vladimir Putin “must be stopped,” and used the attacks to implore Congress to pass additional aid for Ukraine.
“Strikes reportedly hit a maternity hospital, a shopping mall, and residential areas — killing innocent people and injuring dozens more. It is a stark reminder to the world that, after nearly two years of this devastating war, Putin’s objective remains unchanged. He seeks to obliterate Ukraine and subjugate its people. He must be stopped,” Biden said in a written statement following the attack.
Russia launched 122 missiles and dozens of drones against Ukrainian targets in an onslaught that killed at least 30 civilians across the country, officials said Friday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed following the attacks that his country would “surely respond to terrorist strikes” and that “Russian terror must and will lose.”
Biden said that Ukraine was able to deploy their air defense systems to intercept some of the missiles, thanks to support from America and other allies, but warned that the help from the United States has run out, once again calling on Congress to pass supplemental aid for Ukraine in the new year, after they failed to pass to take action earlier this month.
“The American people can be proud of the lives we have helped to save and the support we have given Ukraine as it defends its people, its freedom, and its independence. But unless Congress takes urgent action in the new year, we will not be able to continue sending the weapons and vital air defense systems Ukraine needs to protect its people. Congress must step up and act without any further delay,” he added.
Senate negotiations on Ukraine aid tied to aid for Israel and border security continued Friday with no sign of any imminent deal.
Biden warned that the stakes of the fight in Ukraine will reverberate beyond its borders and “affect the entirety of the NATO Alliance, the security of Europe, and the future of the Transatlantic relationship.” He also warned it increases the risk of pulling the US into the fight directly.
“We cannot let our allies and partners down. We cannot let Ukraine down. History will judge harshly those who fail to answer freedom’s call,” Biden added.
(NEW YORK) — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has vetoed Ohio House Bill 68, which is comprised of two acts: the “Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act,” which would ban transgender minors from receiving gender-affirming medical care, and the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which would prevent transgender girls from taking part in girls’ and women’s sports.
“I truly believe that we can address a number of goals in House Bill 68 by administrative rules that will have likely a better chance of surviving judicial review and being adopted,” DeWine said at a Friday press conference.
He announced that he agreed with several concerns from the legislature and will draft rules for gender-affirming care moving forward — including bans on surgeries for minors, reporting and data collection on those who receive care, as well as restrictions on “pop-up clinics” that serve the transgender community.
At least 20 states have implemented restrictions on access to gender-affirming care, many of which have faced legal challenges. A law in Arkansas was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge and several laws have been blocked while the cases are tried.
Ohio’s bill could still go into effect if 60% of the state legislature votes to override the governor’s veto.
He announced the decision on the last of 10 days he had to sign or strike down the bill once it reached his desk, using the time to speak to those who would be impacted by the restrictions on the transgender community.
When asked if he had thoughts on the sports restrictions in the bill, DeWine said he “focused on the part of the bill that I thought affected the most people and the most children by far,” referring to the gender-affirming care portion of the bill.
Gender-affirming care impact
The bill would restrict gender-affirming medical care — including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries — for transgender people under the age of 18. The bill includes exceptions for this kind of care for non-transgender youth.
Physicians have told ABC News that doctors, families and patients often have many long conversations together to consider age-appropriate individualized approaches to care. This often begins with mental health care, they say.
For youth approaching puberty, puberty blockers are a reversible form of gender-affirming care that allows children to pause puberty and explore their gender identity without the growth of permanent sex characteristics that may cause further stress, according to physicians interviewed by ABC News.
Hormone therapy for older teens helps align a patient’s physical appearance with their gender identity. Patients are given estrogen or testosterone, and the changes from these medications occur slowly and are less reversible.
Surgeries on adolescents are rare and only considered on a case-by-case basis, physicians have told ABC News.
“None of [the families] that I talked to talked about surgery,” said DeWine on Friday. “That’s not where they were going in the discussion. And I think that’s a frankly, a fallacy that’s out there that, you know, this goes right to surgery. It just doesn’t. All the children hospitals say that we don’t do surgeries.”
Gender-affirming care has been called safe and effective by more than 20 major national medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association. The AMA has said this care can be medically necessary to improve the physical and mental health of transgender people.
Transgender youth are more likely to experience anxiety, depressed mood and suicidal ideation and suicide attempts due to discrimination and gender dysphoria, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Research shows that hormone therapy can improve the mental health of transgender adolescents and teenagers, a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine found.
“These are gut-wrenching decisions that should be made by the parents and should be informed by teams of doctors who are advising them,” said DeWine. “These are parents who have watched the child suffer sometimes for years and we have real concerns that their child may not survive.”
Physicians who provide this care for trans youth would be “subject to discipline by the applicable professional licensing board” if this bill passes.
A grandfather clause allows people already receiving care to continue doing so.
Supporters of gender-affirming care restrictions believe that gender transitioning is harmful to youth. Some say patients should wait until they are older to make this kind of health decision.
“If you don’t know if something you’re doing is going to hurt someone 10, 15, 20 years down the road — or maybe even one year down the road — don’t do it,” state Sen. Terry Johnson, who is a retired physician, said in a Dec. 13 debate on the bill. “The medical evidence is not there to support what we’re doing in the country.”
Critics of these laws say they prevent families and physicians from making decisions about their health care and will harm transgender youth.
“Instead of protecting children, we’re doing the exact opposite,” said state Sen. Nickie Antonio on Dec. 13. “We’re putting ourselves one more time between patients, families and medical professionals in making decisions about what’s best for children.”
Restrictions on sports
Currently, under its transgender policy, the Ohio High School Athletic Association says, “Transgender student athletes should have equal opportunity to participate in sports.”
As the policy currently stands, a transgender girl must either complete a minimum of one year of hormone treatment or demonstrate that she did not possess physical or physiological advantages over genetic females.
For a transgender male to participate, he must demonstrate that his muscle mass developed as a result of testosterone treatment and does not exceed muscle mass typical of adolescent genetic males. Hormone levels are then monitored every three to six months.
House Bill 68 would have made it so transgender girls could not play on girls’ or women’s teams.
A bill that would have banned transgender athletes from sports that correspond with their gender identity, which also included an overhaul of the state Board of Education’s powers, failed in the Ohio legislature last year. The Senate amended and passed the bill, but House representatives voted against it.
(WASHINGTON) — Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has ruled that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot.
Bellows, a Democrat, issued her decision on three challenges brought by Maine voters, including three politicians, over the nomination petition of Trump for the GOP primary.
Bellows upheld the two challenges that sought to bar Trump from the ballot based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. She rejected one that hinged on the 22nd Amendment
“I conclude that Mr. Trump’s primary petition is invalid,” Bellows wrote in her decision. “Specifically, I find that the declaration on his candidate consent form is false because he is not qualified to hold the office of the President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Bellows went on to say in her decision that “the record establishes that Mr. Trump, over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power. I likewise conclude that Mr. Trump was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it.”
Bellows concluded that Trump’s “occasional requests that rioters be peaceful and support law enforcement” did not “immunize his actions. A brief call to obey the law does not erase conduct over the course of months, culminating in his speech on the Ellipse. The weight of the evidence makes clear that Mr. Trump was aware of the tinder laid by his multi-month effort to delegitimize a democratic election, and then chose to light a match,” her decision read.
In her conclusion, Bellow said she was “mindful” no secretary of state had “deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
She continued: “I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection. The oath I swore to uphold the Constitution comes first above all, and my duty under Maine’s election laws, when presented with a Section 336 challenge, is to ensure that candidates who appear on the primary ballot are qualified for the office they seek.”
Bellows suspended “the effect” of her decision until Maine’s Superior Court rules on any appeal, given the “compressed timeframe, the novel constitutional questions involved, the importance of this case, and impending ballot preparation deadlines,” involved in the case, she wrote.
In a statement immediately following the decision, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said they would “quickly file a legal objection in state court.”
He went on to call Bellows a “hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat who has decided to interfere in the presidential election.”
The ruling on Thursday evening makes Maine the second state in the nation to disqualify Trump from seeking the GOP presidential nomination under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Colorado is the only other state to rule him off its primary ballot, though the state Supreme Court’s decision has been stayed until Jan. 4, 2024, because the Colorado Republican Party appealed the court’s Dec. 19 order to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday night.
Bellows acknowledged an impending Supreme Court ruling and how it could impact her decision in her order Thursday:
“While I am cognizant of the fact that my decision could soon be rendered a nullity by a decision of the United States Supreme Court in Anderson, that possibility does not relieve me of my responsibility to act,” Bellows wrote.
Trump is facing more than a dozen tests over his ballot eligibility under the 14th Amendment in various state and federal courts, with challenges or appeals pending in about 15 states. Maine is the first state to allow its secretary of state to rule on a challenge.
Former UN ambassador and 2024 Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley speaks at a town hall campaign event at Kennett High School in North Conway, New Hampshire, on December 28, 2023. JOSEPH PREZIOSO/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Thursday addressed the backlash to her Wednesday night comments about what she thought was the cause of the American Civil War, during which she notably did not cite slavery as a cause, sparking criticism.
“Of course, the Civil War was about slavery,” said Haley at a Thursday town hall in New Hampshire. “We know that. That’s unquestioned. Always the case. We know the Civil War was about slavery.”
Haley continued to elaborate, telling the crowd that the war was about more than that.
“It was about the freedoms of every individual,” she said. “It was about the role of the government. For 80 years, America had the decision and the moral question of whether slavery was a good thing and whether government economically, culturally, any other reasons, had a role to play in. By the grace of God, we did the right thing and slavery is no more. But the lessons of what the bigger issue with the Civil War is that let’s not forget what came out of that, which is government’s role, individual liberties, freedom for every single person freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do and be anything you want to be without any one on government getting in our way.”
Haley said that she believes deserves to be a free individual.
Her comments were prompted by an audience question about what Haley thought the war was about.
The Republican candidate first turned the question around on the person who posed it.
“What do you think the cause of the Civil War was?” she asked, to which the questioner responded by saying, “I’m not running for president.”
Haley then stated: “I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And we will always stand by the fact that I think the government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people,” Haley said. “It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life. They don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom.”
The questioner told Haley it was “astonishing” she gave an answer that did not mention slavery.
“What do you want me to say about slavery?” she responded before pivoting and asking for the next question.
Critics accused Haley of refusing to mention slavery, saying her description of the Civil War is whitewashing U.S. history.
“Haley’s refusal to admit that the Civil War was rooted in slavery last night in Berlin is just the latest of her shameful attempts to whitewash our country’s history,” said New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley. “From defending the Confederate flag and leaders to equating Black History Month with Confederate History Month, Haley’s record bowing to the extreme fringes of the MAGA base speaks volumes and is yet another reason why New Hampshire voters will reject her next year.”
President Joe Biden responded to Haley’s comments on X, formerly known as Twitter, stating simply: “It was about slavery.”
(NEW YORK) — Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., announced Wednesday that she will switch congressional districts when she runs for reelection next year after barely eking out a victory in 2022.
Boebert, a House hardliner who made a name for herself as a staunch advocate for gun owner rights, said in a video that she will be running in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District rather than the 3rd Congressional District, which she currently represents. The 4th Congressional District is currently held by Rep. Ken Buck, a Republican who is retiring at the end of his current term. The district leans more Republican than the seat Boebert currently holds.
In a Facebook video, Boebert cast the move as a “fresh start.”
“I cannot put into words how grateful I am for everyone who has steadfastly stood alongside me over the past year and beyond. I am going to do everything in my power to represent the 3rd District well for the remainder of this term as I work to earn the trust of grassroots conservative voters in the 4th District to represent them in 2025,” Boebert wrote in caption accompanying the video.
Still, the Colorado Republican nodded to the headwinds she could face if she were to run for reelection in her current district and the implications for House Republicans’ narrow majority if she were to lose.
“I will not allow dark money that is directed at destroying me personally to steal this seat. It’s not fair to the 3rd District and the conservatives there who have fought so hard for our victories,” she said.
Boebert was already facing a credible primary challenger in the 3rd Congressional District in attorney Jeff Hurd, who had started racking up endorsements from prominent Republicans like former Gov. Bill Owens.
The move comes after she won reelection by about 500 votes against Adam Frisch, a Democrat who is running again in 2024 and has more than tripled her in fundraising so far this cycle.
Frisch responded to Boebert’s announcement in a statement shared with ABC News, in which he said he has “one of the greatest name ID, fundraising, and district-wide relationship advantages for any challenger in the country.”
“From Day 1 of this race, I have been squarely focused on defending rural Colorado’s way of life, and offering common sense solutions to the problems facing the families of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District,” he said. “My focus will remain the same, and I look forward to bringing these issues with me to Congress in 2024.”
Boebert’s self-styled reputation as a Christian conservative took a hit earlier this year after she was caught on video groping a date at a performance of the musical “Beetlejuice” in Denver. She has since apologized for the incident.
Her move will place her in Colorado’s most Republican district, which Buck won with over 60% of the vote in 2022. However, there is already a crowded field of Republicans running to replace Buck, and Boebert currently lives hundreds of miles from the 4th Congressional District, though she said she plans on moving.
Legally, she can run in any district in Colorado as long as she lives in the state.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(IDAHO) — A federal judge has preliminarily blocked an Idaho law banning gender-affirming healthcare treatments for transgender people under 18 years old. The law was set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2024, and would have made it a felony to provide such care.
District Court Judge Lynn Winmill ruled Wednesday that the law’s restrictions violate the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“Transgender children should receive equal treatment under the law,” Winmill stated in his decision. “Parents should have the right to make the most fundamental decisions about how to care for their children.”
He continued, “Time and again, these cases illustrate that the Fourteenth Amendment’s primary role is to protect disfavored minorities and preserve our fundamental rights from legislative overreach … and it is no less true for transgender children and their parents in the 21st Century.”
HB 71 was signed into law by Governor Brad Little in April. The law bans puberty blockers — which allow children to explore their gender identity and pause the growth of permanent sex characteristics — hormone therapies, as well as surgeries. Physicians interviewed by ABC News have said that surgeries on adolescents are rare and only considered on a case-by-case basis.
The legislation provides an exception for children with “medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development,” also known as intersex.
Any medical professional convicted of providing such care could be convicted of a felony and imprisoned in the state prison for up to 10 years, according to the law’s text.
At least 20 states have implemented restrictions on access to gender-affirming care, many of which have faced legal challenges. The law in Arkansas, the first legislation of its kind in the U.S., was also ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.
Supporters of these restrictions argue that they protect children from “medically unnecessary interventions that result in irreparable infertility, chronic health problems, and mutilated reproductive organs,” stated conservative Christian lobbying group Idaho Family Policy Center in a press release following the signage of the bill.
The teenage plaintiffs at the center of this lawsuit, who would be impacted by the legislation, say that gender-affirming care has been vital to their mental health. It’s a sentiment that several studies have shared.
Transgender youth are more likely to experience anxiety, depressed mood, and suicidal ideation and attempts, often due to gender-related discrimination and gender dysphoria, according to the CDC. Gender-affirming hormone therapy has been proven to improve the mental health of transgender adolescents and teenagers, according to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
One plaintiff said puberty blockers “had near immediate positive effects” on her. “By pausing the physical changes that were causing her depression and anxiety, her mental health greatly improved,” Winmill’s decision states.
The second plaintiff began taking puberty blockers after “several months of therapy, additional visits with her doctor, and lab work.” After a few months, she began taking low-dose hormone therapy, according to the filing.
“Since receiving gender-affirming medical care, Jane’s mental health has significantly improved, but the debate over HB 71 and other anti-transgender bills has affected her mental health and her grades,” read the filing, using a pseudonym for the plaintiff. “When the bill passed, Jane wept in the hallway at school, and her parents had to take her home. The passage of the bill has also caused the Doe family to consider leaving Idaho so that Jane can continue to access the medical care that has helped her so significantly.”
Major national medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and over 20 more agree that gender-affirming care is safe, effective, beneficial, and medically necessary.
(NEW YORK) — Bipartisan negotiations resume Wednesday between senators on a potential border security package, a source familiar confirms.
ABC News is told the conversations will be held remotely as the Senate is out on recess for the holiday and is not expected to return until Jan. 8.
Before leaving town last week, principal Senate negotiators signaled they were making “progress” on a potential deal and that they would continue discussing it during the recess.
Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy, GOP Sen. James Lankford and Arizona independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — the trio leading the talks — had been huddling for weeks to try to find a way forward on changes to immigration and border security.
Details on what could be in a potential border security package are still slim, but the main areas of discussion include: toughening asylum protocols for migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, bolstering border enforcement with more personnel and high-tech systems and deterring migrants from making the journey to the US in the first place.
The senators say they are trying to ensure that migrants who have a credible claim to asylum can safely apply, but that officials can also quickly turn away those who don’t qualify. The goal, senators have said, is to create a more orderly, efficient asylum system that reduces chaos at the border.
Republicans have insisted that a bipartisan compromise on immigration and border security policy is necessary to advance additional funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas traveled to Mexico City on Wednesday to discuss historic levels of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border. They plan to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manual López Obrador before returning to Washington later on Wednesday. Their meeting will be focused on “unprecedented irregular migration in the Western Hemisphere and identify ways” each country can address border security challenges, including reopening key ports of entry, the Department of State said in a statement last week.President Joe Biden has previously said he is willing to make “significant compromises” on immigration policy to secure an aid deal for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
The urgent meeting comes as a caravan of an estimated 6,000 migrants makes its way to the U.S. border.
(NEW YORK) — The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an appeal aimed at barring former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
In doing so, Michigan’s high court upheld a Michigan Court of Appeals ruling earlier this month that rejected an earlier appeal filed by the watchdog group Free Speech For People on behalf of a group of Michigan voters.
The group had sought to remove Trump from the ballot based on his activity surrounding the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by his supporters and filed an appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court shortly after that ruling.
The ruling in the battleground state comes days after the Colorado Supreme Court made the historic move last week to ban Trump from that state’s GOP primary ballot — a first-of-its-kind order in which the majority of the court said the former president “engaged in insurrection” on Jan. 6. Trump’s team has said that decision will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming weeks.
The Michigan Supreme Court rejected the FSFP’s appeal on procedural grounds, saying it was not “persuaded that the questions presented” should be reviewed by that court.
FSFP said it was “disappointed” by the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision, noting in a statement that the high court did not rule on a number of questions concerning the legal theories advanced in the lawsuit. “It simply declined to overrule a lower court ruling that the Michigan state challenge process does not allow challenges to presidential candidates at the primary stage,” the group said.
Trump celebrated the Michigan Supreme Court ruling in a post on his social media platform. “The Michigan Supreme Court has strongly and rightfully denied the Desperate Democrat attempt to take the leading Candidate in the 2024 Presidential Election, me, off the ballot in the Great State of Michigan,” he said.
Trump called the 14th Amendment challenges a “pathetic gambit,” adding, “Colorado is the only State to have fallen prey to the scheme.”
The Michigan 14th Amendment cases never reached a trial to review evidence, unlike in Colorado. Oral arguments took place in a Michigan Court of Claims in early November for three lawsuits: two that challenged Trump’s eligibility, suing Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to keep Trump off the ballot, and a third lawsuit filed by the former president suing Benson. That suit demanded it be declared she has no authority to do so. A Michigan Court of Claims judge dismissed the first two suits and upheld the third.
FSFP then filed an appeal with with the Michigan Court of Appeals in its challenge seeking to keep Trump off the state’s primary and general election ballots. That court rejected the effort, saying in a 3-0 opinion that the plaintiff’s challenge was not “ripe” on procedural grounds. It did not specifically rule on whether Trump fell under the disqualification clause.
While the court did not release a vote count, Michigan Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth M. Welch dissented, contrasting the Michigan and Colorado 14th Amendment cases, specifically comparing Michigan law with Colorado’s election code.
“The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision was preceded by a lengthy evidentiary proceeding in a trial court that developed the factual record necessary to resolve the complicated legal questions at issue,” Welch wrote, “Significantly, Colorado’s election laws differ from Michigan’s laws in a material way that is directly relevant to why the appellants in this case are not entitled to the relief they seek concerning the presidential primary election in Michigan.”
The plaintiffs “have identified no analogous provision in the Michigan Election Law that requires someone seeking the office of President of the United States to attest to their legal qualification to hold the office,” she added.
Ron Fein, legal director of FSFP, said in a statement that the Michigan Supreme Court “ruling conflicts with longstanding US Supreme Court precedent that makes clear that when political parties use the election machinery of the state to select, via the primary process, their candidates for the general election, they must comply with all constitutional requirements in that process. However, the Michigan Supreme Court did not rule out that the question of Donald Trump’s disqualification for engaging in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution may be resolved at a later stage.”
Fein said that their organization would continue with “current and planned legal actions in other states to enforce Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment against Donald Trump.”
(DENVER, Colo.) — Denver police are increasing security for members of the Colorado Supreme Court after last week’s ruling that Donald Trump should be disqualified from running for president under the 14th Amendment.
“The Denver Police Department is currently investigating incidents directed at Colorado Supreme Court justices and will continue working with our local, state and federal law enforcement partners to thoroughly investigate any reports of threats or harassment,” Denver police said in a statement Tuesday. “Due to the open investigations and safety and privacy considerations, we will not be providing details of these investigations. The Department is providing extra patrols around justice’s residences in Denver and will provide additional safety support if/as requested.”
In a 4-3 ruling that could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, a majority of Colorado’s seven justices wrote that the former president “engaged in insurrection” for his behavior on Jan. 6, 2021, ahead of scores of his supporters storming the U.S. Capitol.
“President Trump’s direct and express efforts, over several months, exhorting his supporters to march to the Capitol to prevent what he falsely characterized as an alleged fraud on the people of this country were indisputably overt and voluntary,” the justices wrote.
“Moreover,” they wrote, “the evidence amply showed that President Trump undertook all these actions to aid and further a common unlawful purpose that he himself conceived and set in motion: prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election and stop the peaceful transfer of power.”
On Dec. 21, the FBI told ABC News it was working with local law enforcement in Colorado to monitor threats to the justices.
“The FBI is aware of the situation and working with local law enforcement,” the agency said in a statement to ABC News. “We will vigorously pursue —investigations of any threat or use of violence committed by someone who uses extremist views to justify their actions regardless of motivation.”
The four justices who voted in favor of removing Trump from the primary ballot continued to receive threats over the weekend, even encouraging more violence in the wake of previous media reports, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which that tracks online activity of white supremacist and jihadist organizations. Threats included calls for the justices to be dragged from their homes, hanged and shot, according to SITE Intel Group.
Colorado’s four-justice majority predicted that the matter would wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court. They stayed the ruling until Jan. 4, 2024, saying it would maintain the status quo pending any review from the nation’s high court.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
