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CU Amicus Brief With Former U.S. Attorneys General In Trump-Colorado SCOTUS Ballot Case Gains Media Attention

CNNThe conservative legal world lines up behind Donald Trump at the Supreme Court: “A group of former Republican attorneys general, which includes William Barr, Michael Mukasey and Edwin Meese, is also emphasizing that Section 3 does not cover the president, even as the group subtly acknowledges the national divisions arising from the attack on the Capitol.

In their interpretation of Section 3, they say, “The text speaks to a hierarchy of public offices in descending rank order, and its reference to an ‘officer of the United States’ low in that hierarchical list cannot include a President because an office ‘under the United States’ and ‘officer of the United States’ did not include the presidency as those terms were historically understood.”

The former attorneys general add, “Whatever one thinks of President Trump’s behavior on January 6, 2021, the stakes in this case are much larger than any one candidate or election. The overriding question is whether the Court will interpret Section 3 in a way that would henceforth empower partisan officials to unilaterally disqualify their political opponents from the ballot, especially the presidential ballot.””

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Los Angeles TimesDisqualify Trump? The Supreme Court is getting lots of urgent advice — but no clear direction: “Former Attys. Gen. Edwin Meese, Michael Mukasey and William Barr, joined by prominent conservative professors, agree on the stakes: A false step by the court “would be ruinous for the Nation’s tradition of free and fair elections.” But their advice to the court is an admixture of the other briefs’ bottom lines: They argue that the amendment requires enabling legislation but also that it does not cover presidential candidates.”

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