Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Republican presidential candidates and lawmakers fell in line behind former President Donald Trump after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled he was disqualified from appearing on the state’s primary ballot for inciting insurrection, citing the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In a familiar trend, Republicans of all stripes, from Trump backers to Trump skeptics to Trump antagonists, lambasted the ruling, offering the former president a wave of support after the surprise court decision.

“And you see that with the Colorado Supreme Court. I mean, look, if somebody’s convicted or something, of some of these things, there was no trial on any of this. They basically just said, what, ‘You can’t be on the ballot.’ I mean, how does that work? What’s the limiting principle for that?” asked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is trying to catch up to Trump in the GOP presidential primary.

“I don’t think Donald Trump needs to be president. I think I need to be president. I think that’s good for the country. But I will beat him fair and square. We don’t need to have judges making these decisions, we need voters to make these decisions,” said former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is rising in the polls but still double digit behind Trump in the primary.

Even former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whose anti-Trump message is the cornerstone of his own presidential aspirations, said, “I do not believe Donald Trump should be prevented from being president of the United States by any court.”

And entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been a vociferous Trump backer even while running against him, said he plans on withdrawing from Colorado’s primary ballot in solidarity with Trump, challenging his fellow presidential candidates to do the same.

Down the ballot, the reaction was much the same.

New Hampshire Republican Chuck Morse, who is running for governor in the state and endorsed Trump, wrote on X that “what we are witnessing in Colorado is a blatant attempt to end democracy as we know it!”

And on Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers decried the ruling as an overstep.

“Today’s ruling attempting to disqualify President Trump from the Colorado ballot is nothing but a thinly veiled partisan attack. Regardless of political affiliation, every citizen registered to vote should not be denied the right to support our former president and the individual who is the leader in every poll of the Republican primary,” said Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

The Republican National Committee, with which Trump has had a hot-and-cold relationship, is offering Trump assistance as his team appeals the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. And an RNC official confirmed to ABC News that the state party would be able to change its voting process from a state-run primary to a party-run caucus if it so chooses — a voting method with which the state would not be able to interfere.

The official told ABC News it’s hard to imagine there being much opposition to the move given the widespread condemnation of the Colorado Supreme Court ruling within GOP circles.

But Democrats have been more critical of Trump, with President Joe Biden saying Wednesday that Trump was clearly an insurrectionist but that he’d let the court decide on the 14th Amendment.

“Is Trump an insurrectionist, sir?” ABC News’ Karen Travers asked Biden.

“It’s self-evident. You saw it all. Now, whether the 14th Amendment applies, I’ll let the court make that decision. But he certainly supported an insurrection. No question about it, none, zero. And he seems to be doubling down on about everything,” Biden said.

The stiff defense by Republicans marks the latest chapter of a familiar story in which Trump faces new legal exposure only to receive nearly universal support from across the Republican Party.

Party supporters and detractors have come out against cases charging Trump with wrongdoing over hush money payments to an adult film star, his alleged possession of classified documents after leaving the White House and efforts to reverse his 2020 loss, both in the form of the riot in Washington, D.C., and alleged pressure campaigns toward election officials in Georgia.

“Criminal charges [are] not just because you may have done something wrong. It’s — did you behave criminally? And I think what we’ve seen in this country is an attempt to criminalize politics and to try to criminalize differences,” DeSantis said in July amid special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

It’s still unclear if and when the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on Trump’s expected appeal, and it’s very possible it will restore his access to the Colorado primary ballot.

Still, Trump’s presence on or absence from the primary ballot may not matter.

He retains yawning polling leads in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and is in a strong position to all but lock up the GOP nomination before Colorado’s March 5 primary. And the state isn’t particularly competitive in a general election contest, handing Biden an over 13-point win in 2020.

Similar speculation over Trump’s electoral prospects was sparked in August, when the federal trial over Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election was scheduled to start on March 4, 2024, one day before “Super Tuesday” in the GOP presidential primary. The political world was abuzz over the implications — only for Republican operatives to pour cold water on the idea that Trump could be derailed.

“I get the conversation going into overdrive about Super Tuesday,” Doug Heye, a former RNC communications director, told ABC News at the time. “But if Trump wins Iowa and New Hampshire, then electorally, in the primary, there’s no impact because it’s locked up at that point.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday night claimed former President Donald Trump “embraces political violence” and downplayed early polling showing him losing to Trump in a hypothetical rematch in 2024.

“He’s threatened to use the U.S. military on the streets of America,” Biden said at a campaign fundraiser in Bethesda, Maryland, according to press pool reports.

“Once again, he embraces political violence instead of rejecting it. We can’t let this happen,” Biden told donors.

The president, already preparing to potentially face Trump in next year’s general election, has focused on an argument that Trump is a threat to the country’s democracy because of how he has questioned election integrity and vowed to go after his political opponents.

Trump has countered that it is Biden who is anti-democratic because of the various criminal cases against Trump, related to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, the alleged misuse of government secrets and money paid to an adult film actress before the 2016 election.

Prosecutors have pushed back on the claim they are politically motivated. Trump denies all wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.

At the campaign event on Tuesday, the president also brushed off concerns that Trump would beat him in a general election after a New York Times/Siena College poll published that day found Trump and Biden in a close race.

Other surveys have found similar results.

Biden, instead, highlighted polls showing him narrowly winning before saying it’s too early to tell.

“Doesn’t mean a lot right now, in my opinion,” he said of the polling.

Raising Trump’s controversial comments from a New Hampshire rally on Saturday, Biden warned the former president would abuse the power of the presidency in a second term and noted that Trump continues to praise authoritarian leaders.

“Trump was embracing his old pal [Vladimir] Putin. Trump even quoted him this weekend. It’s no surprise — after all, there’s a lot of agreement between Moscow and Mar-a-Lago,” Biden said.

“The language he uses reminds us of the language coming out of Germany in the ’30s,” Biden continued. “He has called those who oppose him ‘vermin’ and again this weekend, he talked about the ‘blood’ of our country being ‘poisoned.’ Even conservative Republicans have spoken out.”

In Iowa on Tuesday, at his own campaign event, Trump again used some of the same language Biden referred to.

“They’re ruining our country,” Trump said about migrants crossing the border. “And it’s true they’re destroying the blood of our country. That’s what they’re doing.”

Reacting to recent criticism that his words over unauthorized immigrants echo those used by Adolft Hitler in the lead-up to World War II, Trump told his crowd he had not read Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

“They don’t like it when I said that — and I never read Mein Kampf. They said, ‘Oh, Hitler said that’ — in a much different way. No, they’re coming from all over the world. People all over the world,” Trump said Tuesday night.

Biden’s running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, condemned Trump’s comments on immigrants as she appeared on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell later on Tuesday night.

O’Donnell asked about Trump’s words in the context of Harris’ own background as the daughter of immigrants.

“I was raised knowing that there will be some people who will use their voice in a way that is meant to dehumanize, meant to suggest that the vast majority of us don’t have anything in common, when, in fact, the vast majority of us have more in common than what separates us,” Harris said.

At his Tuesday campaign event, Biden brought up Trump recently telling Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he wouldn’t be a dictator “except for day one,” so that he could focus on the border and on drilling, when Hannity asked if he would use the presidency for retribution.

As he has at similar fundraisers, Biden called Trump “a defeated former president” who “can’t get tired of losing,” as a rematch between the two appears increasingly likely.

“Let me be clear,” Biden continued. “I think Donald Trump poses many threats to the country. From the right to choose, to civil rights, to voting rights, to the American standing in the world.”

“The greatest threat Trump poses is the threat to our democracy,” he added. “Because if we lose, we lose everything.”

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(NEW YORK) — Fugitive Leonard Glenn Francis, also known as “Fat Leonard,” the mastermind behind the worst corruption scheme in U.S. Navy history, was arrested and returned to the U.S. Wednesday as part of a detainee exchange with Venezuela.

Francis, a Malaysian defense contractor, was behind one of the largest bribery scandals ever involving the U.S. military, specifically involving dozens of U.S. Navy officers who were later prosecuted by federal prosecutors.

In 2015, the Singapore-based Francis pleaded guilty to offering lavish parties that included prostitutes, luxury hotels, cigars, gourmet meals and more than $500,000 in cash bribes to Navy officers so they could steer business to his company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd.

That company offered services to the U.S. Navy ships in ports throughout the Pacific, and federal prosecutors alleged it overcharged the Navy by at least $35 million.

He held those lavish parties for more than a decade, which paid dividends as Naval officers provided him with classified ship schedules that gave him an advantage over rivals by knowing where they would be headed.

His scheme was uncovered in 2013 and he was arrested in San Diego where he had been lured by military investigators.

In 2015, he pleaded guilty in return for information to help federal prosecutors in bringing cases against 34 defendants, 33 of whom were prosecuted, including many Navy officers.

Dozens of other Navy personnel who were not prosecuted were tainted by their contacts with him and saw the end of their careers.

During the years of court proceedings, “Fat Leonard” had been placed under long-term house arrest with a GPS ankle bracelet, but without around-the-clock security guards.

But in September 2022 he ended up in Venezuela after escaping from house arrest.

He was arrested later that month by Venezuelan authorities as he tried to board a plane bound for Russia.

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(BOSTON) — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu publicly apologized to two Black men who were wrongfully accused in the 1989 murder of a pregnant white woman.

Willie Bennett and Alan Swanson were initially implicated in the murder of 30-year-old Carol Stuart, after her husband, Charles Stuart, told the police that a Black man attacked and shot them. Police later said that Charles was responsible for orchestrating his wife’s murder and collecting insurance money after her death.

Bennett was arrested and jailed before both men were cleared. Charles Stuart died by suicide in 1990 after learning police were eying him in the case.

The naming of Bennett and Swanson as suspects in the case caused outrage in Boston’s Black community as many felt the police had unfairly targeted Black residents during their search for the murderer.

“I am so sorry for the pain that you have carried for so many years,” Wu said during her apology Wednesday. “What was done to you was unjust, unfair, racist, and wrong.”

“At every opportunity, those in power closed their eyes to the truth, because the lie felt familiar,” she said. “They saw the story they wanted to see.”

Joseph Bennett, Willie Bennett’s nephew, accepted the apology on behalf of his family.

“We just want to express our gratitude to Mayor Wu for the apology, her courage and acknowledging the wrongdoings of the Boston Police,” he said. “It takes great humility and courage to acknowledge someone else’s wrongdoings and to try to make amends.”

The Bennett family sued the city in federal and state courts and years later received a $12,500 settlement, according to the Boston Globe.

Among other Boston leaders who spoke, Judge Leslie Harris, who represented Alan Swanson during the case, said that Boston owes more to the family.

“I’m saying that we owe them something, as a community, as a city, as a nation,” he said. “We owe them more than $12,500, we owe them an opportunity to move forward.”

Mayor Wu presented both families official letters of apology on behalf of the city.

“We know that we can imagine the strength and grace that you bring today and that you have for 34 years,” she said addressing the pain inflicted on the Black community. “I thank you for your faith in our capacity to do better.”

“The apology is accepted,” Bennett repeated as he hugged Wu.

According to the Associated Press, Charles Stuart told police a Black man forced his way into their car as the couple left a birthing class at a city hospital in 1989. The man ordered them to drive to the city’s Mission Hill neighborhood and robbed them before shooting Carol Stuart in the head and Charles in the chest, he told police.

Carol Stuart and her child later died at the hospital, police said.

Several members and friends of the Stuart family eventually came forward with new information that pointed to Charles Stuart as the culprit, police said.

A documentary, “Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage & Reckoning,” which chronicles the case and the racial tensions caused in the wake of the murder, was released by HBO in collaboration with the Boston Globe this year.

Bennett said he hopes the world can now be informed of what happened 34 years ago, and that the families can begin to heal the generational trauma caused by the tragedy.

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(HOUSTON) — The Justice Department on Wednesday announced its first-ever predatory mortgage lending lawsuit against a Houston-based developer they accuse of swindling tens of thousands of Hispanic borrowers into buying flood-prone homes with loans that were designed to fail.

Officials say Colony Ridge used targeted ads on TikTok to appeal to Spanish-speaking borrowers, promising them the “dream of homeownership” with easy-to-obtain loans that required no credit checks and a small deposit.

But the Justice Department alleges it was all part of a bait-and-switch — thousands of mostly-Hispanic borrowers lured into homes with shoddy water, sewer and electrical infrastructure on payment plans that they’d never be able to afford. Interest rates were astronomical, ranging between 10.9-12.9% in some instances.

The lawsuit says Colony Ridge exploited language barriers as well by conducting most of its marketing in Spanish, yet offered important transaction documents only in English.

“Discrimination in lending harms families and neighborhoods for generations, it is wrong, and it has no place in our country,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a Justice Department news release.

In instances where families would fall behind on payments, they were quickly bought out by Colony Ridge and their houses were then flipped and resold for higher prices to more unsuspecting buyers, the lawsuit alleges.

The DOJ’s investigation found that as a result, Colony Ridge would initiate foreclosures on roughly 30% of their lots within just three years of the purchase date, accounting for more than 92% of all foreclosures in Liberty County, Texas, between 2017 and 2022.

The lawsuit, brought in tandem with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is seeking an injunction against Colony Ridge from further engaging in their alleged predatory practices as well as yet-to-be determined financial relief for their victims. The DOJ is asking anyone who believes they were victims to contact the department’s housing discrimination hotline at 1-833-591-0291.

“Colony Ridge promised the American dream, but we allege that in reality, it has delivered a nightmare for thousands of hardworking Hispanic families who hoped to build their homes in the Terrenos Houston community,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke. “This lawsuit demonstrates our commitment to holding accountable those in the housing and financial industry who intentionally target and exploit homebuyers because they are Hispanic or don’t speak English well.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration completed a prisoner swap with Venezuela Wednesday, granting clemency to one of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s close allies in exchange for the freedom of 10 Americans who had been jailed in the country and are now currently en route back to the U.S, the White House said.

“Today, ten Americans who have been detained in Venezuela have been released and are coming home, including all six wrongfully detained Americans,” President Biden said in a statement Wednesday. “These individuals have lost far too much precious time with their loved ones, and their families have suffered every day in their absence. I am grateful that their ordeal is finally over, and that these families are being made whole once more.

As part of the deal, the White House said that Venezuela has also allowed notorious fugitive Leonard Glenn Francis or “Fat Leonard,” the mastermind behind the worst corruption scheme in the history of the U.S. Navy, to be taken into U.S. custody, and that it will release a high-profile member of the country’s opposition party charged with treason, free another 20 political prisoners as well as suspend arrest warrants for other opponents to Maduro.

Of the 10 Americans returning home, six had been classified as wrongfully detained by the U.S. government.

The U.S. has not revealed the identities of all of the released prisoners, but a senior administration official said that Eyvin Hernandez, Jerrel Kenemore, Joseph Cristella and Savoi Wright were among them.

Hernandez, Kenemore and Cristella were charged with illegally crossing the border into Venezuela from Columbia in 2022. The details surrounding their arrests remain murky. Even less is known about the circumstances surrounding Wright’s arrest, which occurred in late October. Venezuelan officials have not publicly spoken to the allegations against him.

Maduro’s ally, Alex Saab, is the only Venezuelan released by the U.S. in the exchange. Saab was arrested for money laundering in 2020 and awaiting trial.

ABC’s Mary Bruce, Luis Martinez, and Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday night at a campaign stop in Iowa that he has not read Mein Kampf, the manifesto written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Trump made the statement following recent criticism comparing his words over undocumented immigrants to those used by Hitler in the lead-up to World War II.

While he distanced himself from the controversial book, Trump doubled down on his previous comments about undocumented immigrants.

“They’re destroying the blood of our country,” Trump said about the waves of migrants who have crossed the border. “They’re ruining our country. And it’s true they’re destroying the blood of our country. That’s what they’re doing. They’re destroying our country.”

Throughout the 2024 election cycle, the former president has said people who cross the border illegally are “poisoning the blood” on multiple occasions. Recently, he has ramped up the use of the phrase during his latest campaign speeches. This has drawn criticism from those who claim that Hitler and white supremacists use similar language, pointing to the fact that Hitler wrote about “blood poisoning” in Mein Kampf.

After telling the crowd he had never read Hitler’s book, Trump went on to say that Hitler used the phrase “in a much different way.”

“They don’t like it when I said that — and I never read Mein Kampf. They said, ‘Oh, Hitler said that’ – in a much different way. No, they’re coming from all over the world. People all over the world,” Trump told those at his Iowa event.

Trump continued to use disparaging language when talking about immigrants who have crossed the border, accusing them of bringing in crime and destroying “the fabric of our country.”

“They could bring in disease that’s going to catch on in our country, but they do bring in crime. … They’re destroying the blood of our country. They’re destroying the fabric of our country,” he said.

The remarks were made during Trump’s Christmas rally in Waterloo, Iowa, where the festivities were outshined by breaking legal news regarding Trump’s eligibility to appear on Colorado’s presidential primary ballot.

The state Supreme Court ruled late Tuesday that the former president is ineligible to run for president in 2024 based on the 14th Amendment’s insurrection ban, stemming from the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump’s campaign quickly vowed to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Despite news of the ruling breaking roughly an hour before Trump took the stage, the former president did not directly mention it. Instead, he stuck to his usual unsubstantiated claims that President Joe Biden is responsible for the investigations into him while accusing Biden and Democrats of being “willing to violate the U.S. Constitution at levels never seen before in order to win this election.”

“Joe Biden is a threat to democracy, he’s a threat,” Trump continued. “They’re weaponizing law enforcement for high-level election interference because we’re beating them so badly in the polls.”

Trump kicked off his speech earlier in the night by attempting to lower expectations for Iowa caucus results while still boasting about his lead in the polls.

“This is really important — our country’s at stake. We have a country that’s never been in trouble like it is right now. So get out and vote whether we’re leading in the polls or not leading in the polls,” Trump told his supporters.

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(WASHINGTON) — Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy pledged on Tuesday to remove himself from Colorado’s Republican primary ballot in response to the state’s Supreme Court’s ruling that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to run in the state over his activity surrounding Jan. 6.

Ramaswamy promised to stay off the ballot until Trump’s eligibility is restored. He called upon his and Trump’s 2024 GOP primary opponents to take the same steps.

“I pledge to withdraw from the Colorado GOP primary ballot until Trump is also allowed to be on the ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie and Nikki Haley do the same immediately – or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver which will have disastrous consequences for our country,” Ramaswamy said in a statement.

Ramaswamy’s statements came shortly after the Colorado Supreme Court decided on Tuesday evening that Trump is disqualified from running for the GOP presidential nomination in their state because he violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which says former officeholders cannot run again if they’ve engaged in insurrection against the U.S.

Colorado’s high court said Trump engaged in insurrection due to his activity surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. A Trump spokesperson said they would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Shortly before pledging to remove himself from Colorado’s primary ballot in solidarity with Trump, Ramaswamy told ABC News that while it would admittedly be easier to win without the front-runner in the race, the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling against the former president strikes him as “appalling for the future of our country.”

“And to tell you the truth, it would be a lot easier for me to get elected if Trump wasn’t in this race, but that’s not – it’s not about me, and it’s not about another candidate,” Ramaswamy said, speaking to ABC News after his campaign event in Garner, Iowa. “This is wrong. And I think that this is a flagrant violation of the rule of law.”

Later, in Mason City, Iowa, at his seventh and final event of the day on Tuesday, Ramaswamy told a packed bar of voters of his opposition to the court’s decision.

Asked by ABC News later how withdrawing from the ballot will affect his path to the nomination (there are 37 Republican delegates up for grabs in Colorado), Ramaswamy predicted that every remaining Republican candidate will follow suit.

“I think every Republican will end up withdrawing, which means that that won’t affect anyone’s path to the nomination,” he said.

After Ramaswamy first released his statement about removing himself from the Colorado ballot over the court’s Trump decision, the Colorado Republican Party responded to the candidate in a post on X, noting that he would not need to withdraw from the contest because they’d be shifting from the state-run primary to a party-run caucus if the ruling was to stand.

That move, however, would likely trigger a rule change from the Republican National Committee, which has already approved the state party’s nomination plan.

“We would seek a waiver and probably get it,” the Colorado Republican Party’s Chairman, Dave Williams, told ABC News.

The RNC has not responded to ABC’s request for comment.

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(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump is ineligible to run for president in 2024 because of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.

The historic decision based on the 14th Amendment, barring Trump from the presidential primary ballot, sets up a battle before the nation’s highest court about the fate of next year’s election.

In a 4-3 ruling that will soon be appealed — and that is likely to inspire fierce criticism from Trump’s supporters and vocal applause from those who have condemned his behavior around Jan. 6 — a majority of Colorado’s seven justices wrote that the former president “engaged in insurrection.”

“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.”

In light of this, the ruling states, “[W]e conclude that because President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary to list President Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.”

The justices stayed their ruling until Jan. 4, pending appeal.

Three of the judges dissented: Chief Justice Brian D. Boatright and Justices Carlos A. Samour Jr. and Maria E. Berkenkotter.

Boatright, in his dissent, wrote that the “absence of an insurrection-related conviction” against Trump should have called for the case to be dismissed.

Samour wrote that the majority’s opinion “flies in the face of the due process doctrine.”

The ruling follows a monthslong challenge in Colorado to Trump’s ballot eligibility under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a Civil War-era constitutional clause that deems former office-holders ineligible from running again if they took an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S.

In September, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), filed a lawsuit on behalf of six Republican and unaffiliated voters in Colorado that claimed Trump had breached that clause due to his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

He has long denied any wrongdoing and was acquitted by Senate Republicans in 2021 after being impeached for allegedly inciting Jan. 6.

The Colorado Supreme Court’s majority on Tuesday reversed a lower court’s decision that the president was not an “officer” of the U.S. under the Constitution and therefore that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment did not apply.

The ruling also denied Trump’s appeal on 11 issues and found that his actions on Jan. 6, including a speech outside the White House that morning, were not protected by the First Amendment.

Trump, currently the front-runner in the 2024 GOP primary, has attacked the Colorado 14th Amendment challenge — and similar such lawsuits against him around the country — as baseless and anti-democratic.

A Trump spokesman on Tuesday night soon vowed an appeal and the campaign has already begun fundraising off of the decision.

“The Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision tonight …. We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these unAmerican lawsuits,” spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement, in part.

CREW lauded the ruling as “necessary to protect the future of democracy in our country.”

Norma Anderson, one of the six petitioners and a former Republican state lawmaker, said in a statement issued by CREW that “my fellow plaintiffs and I brought this case to continue to protect the right to free and fair elections enshrined in our Constitution and to ensure Colorado Republican primary voters are only voting for eligible candidates. Today’s win does just that.”

Trump has so far faced multiple 14th Amendment challenges in various states after the argument against his eligibility built momentum this year among advocates and in some legal circles, including with some conservative scholars.

But of the dozens of challenges to his candidacy, no court had yet disqualified him — until Tuesday.

Lawsuits citing the 14th Amendment were dismissed by nine courts: in Michigan, by the district court in Colorado — leading to the appeals battle there — and by the Minnesota Supreme Court, a district court in Washington and by federal courts in Arizona, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Florida.

On Dec. 6, the Colorado Supreme Court heard oral arguments in an appeal of the lower court judge’s ruling rejecting CREW’s challenge to Trump’s ballot eligibility.

During a two-hour hearing in Denver, the seven-justice court posed sharp questions central to the case, including about the definition of insurrection; whether the Capitol riot was an insurrection; and whether the “insurrectionist ban” applies to a U.S. president.

“I guess I’m expressing a concern about the definition of insurrection that the district court adopted. It strikes me as somewhat or potentially broad — so let me ask you to address that,” Chief Justice Boatright said during the hearing.

The lower court judge in Colorado, Sarah B. Wallace, had ruled in November that while Trump was eligible to run in the 2024 race under the 14th Amendment, she found that he did engage in the Jan. 6 insurrection because he incited it.

Both CREW’s legal team and Trump’s lawyers appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court: CREW because of the final decision on Trump’s ballot eligibility, and Trump’s team over Wallace’s opinion that he engaged in insurrection.

The attorney leading another set of disqualification challenges against Trump previously told ABC News that there was a “very good chance” a top court in Minnesota, Colorado or Michigan would rule on the issue before the end of the year — teeing up urgent review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“This question needs to be decided ideally before any ballots are printed, and I hope and expect it will be decided in our favor,” Ben Clements, chairman and senior legal adviser of Free Speech for People, said in November.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll in September found mixed views on whether Trump should be allowed to run in 2024.

Forty-four percent of Americans said Trump should be barred from the presidency under the 14th Amendment; 50% said he should not be barred; and 6% had no opinion.

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(WASHINGTON) — As negotiations slog along, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said a deal on border and Ukraine funding will not be completed before the end of the year — though talks will still continue this week among a small group of key principals.

“Negotiations aren’t easy. We know it’s going to take more time. But I am significantly more optimistic today than I was Thursday when we left based on the negotiations that have occurred all weekend,” Schumer said during his weekly news conference at the Capitol. “We have only one option: we have to succeed. The stakes are too high for America, for Europe, for the Middle East of the world.”

In his clearest indication yet on timing, Schumer added “our goal is as soon as we get back, to get something done.”

A Biden-backed supplemental aid package includes billions of dollars for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as border enforcement — yet the package remains stalled in Congress.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said while there has been progress, the White House and Senate negotiators still “aren’t there.”

“With regard to the border discussion, I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’ve made some significant progress, but we obviously aren’t there,” McConnell said at the Capitol during his weekly news conference.

McConnell said the process of solving the nation’s immigration problem is “not easy,” noting that the Congress hasn’t passed a significant immigration bill since President Ronald Reagan’s second term.

“I think this is the most dangerous time since the fall of the Berlin Wall,” McConnell said. “No question this package is extremely important.”

Members of the Senate delayed their recess after Schumer said last week that the Senate would stay in Washington to vote on the national security aid package some time this week.

However, with nothing for senators to begin to consider, there has been increasing pessimism from those who returned to Washington. Many showed their complete lack of faith in negotiations by simply refusing to return.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who has been leading talks for Democrats, said a deal is getting closer, but there is a great deal of nuance required.

“We worked 24/7 all throughout the weekend, and we are closer than ever before to an agreement, but as I’ve said to many of you, we need to get this right. There’s a reason why Congress hasn’t passed major immigration or border reform in 40 years,” Murphy said. “This is tough to come to a compromise and it’s just as tough to write to make sure that you get the ideas down onto paper in a way that makes sure that the policy is implemented correctly.”

Schumer could bring up a procedural vote on the supplemental bill whenever he likes. But Republicans have been clear they’ll object to moving forward with any procedural vote if they don’t have access to bill text.

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