The Colorado Case Thuds

Created
Fri, 09/02/2024 - 07:00
Updated
Fri, 09/02/2024 - 07:00
If you want analysis of today’s Supreme Court arguments in the Colorado Ballot case, just turn on any cable news show and you’ll get a snoot-full. They all pretty much come to the same conclusion: Trump will win this one, the only question is whether it will be unanimous or near unanimous. The justices were all “skeptical” apparently. Here’s Ian Millhiser at Vox which I think represents the overall view. But he makes the case that Trump’s lawyer was absolutely terrible and it won’t make any difference: Two things were obvious Thursday morning in the Supreme Court, where the justices pondered whether former President Donald Trump is disqualified from seeking the presidency because of his role in inciting the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. One is that Jonathan Mitchell, the lawyer representing Trump, was in way over his head. During Mitchell’s time at the podium, the justices took turns ripping apart his arguments — or even criticizing him for abandoning stronger legal arguments in favor of weaker ones. Mitchell also made embarrassing concessions, admitting that he had no historical evidence to support some of his key claims. The other obvious thing is that it didn’t matter: Trump is going to win. After Mitchell stepped down from the podium, after emphasizing two arguments that nearly all the justices appeared to view as weak, most of the Court spent the rest of the argument trying to come up with a better reason to rule in favor of Trump. In this case, Trump v. Anderson, the Colorado Supreme Court…