4th U.S. state lets Trump on ballot

Colorado became the fourth US state to allow reelectionist Donald Trump to remain on the presidential primary ballot keeping alive his 2024 White House bid.

Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace on Friday ruled that Trump did not violate a constitutional provision barring anyone from holding public office if they engaged in "insurrection or rebellion."

The same judge found him liable for inciting supporters to storm the United States Capitol in 2021 to thwart the certification of election winner Joe Biden.

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a Washington-based watchdog group, asked the Colorado court to bar Trump from running for public office again in accordance with Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.

The amendment, ratified in 1868, was aimed at preventing supporters of the slave-holding Confederacy from being elected to Congress or from holding federal positions.

The amendment to the Constitution was ratified after the 1861 to 1865 Civil War.

However, Wallace noted there were "persuasive arguments on both sides" as to whether presidents were meant to be included among those who could be barred from holding public office.

"It appears to the court that for whatever reason the drafters of Section Three did not intend to include a person who had only taken the Presidential Oath," she wrote in her ruling.

The Trump campaign hailed the judge's ruling, calling it "another nail in the coffin of the un-American ballot challenges."

"Challenges have now been defeated in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire," Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.

While Trump's lawyers won the battle, similar legal efforts in other states may mean that the issue of Trump's eligibility ends up before the US Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority.

The 77-year-old Trump is to go on trial in Washington in March on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the November 2020 election won by Biden.

WITH AFP