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Here’s What You Should Know About the Four Justices Who Deemed Trump Ineligible to Run for President

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Earlier this week, the Colorado State Supreme Court determined in a 4-3 ruling that Trump is ineligible under the 14th Amendment to appear on the ballot in the state. This nonsensical ruling essentially declares that even though Trump has never been convicted of, much less tried with sedition or participating in an insurrection, he is nevertheless guilty of such. The ruling is bound to be taken up by the Supreme Court, and experts on both sides of the aisle believe it will be promptly overturned. . .

Of course, the obvious thing is that the justices who sided against Trump were all appointed by Democrats. But even that doesn’t fully explain everything because all seven of the justices were Democrat-appointed. But, there is something that separately the 4 justices who voted to ban Trump from ballot and the three who didn’t.

Three of the four justices who voted against Trump were Ivy League graduates.

“The four Democratic-appointed justices who ruled to nix Trump from the primary ballot included three Ivy League graduates, showing a stark divide between the legal mindsets of those who were educated at elite institutions compared to the three justices who said they would not remove the Republican front-runner from the state’s ballot,” reports the Washington Examiner. “Three justices who said they wouldn’t bar Trump from the ballot, Carlos Samour, Maria Berkenkotter, and Chief Justice Brian Boatright, all attended Sturm College of Law in Denver.”

As for the justices who voted to boot Trump from the ballot, Justice Monica Marquez not only got her law degree from Yale, but is the first Latina and openly LGBT justice to serve on the court. “She also worked as an assistant solicitor general and as assistant attorney general in both the Public Officials Unit and Criminal Appellate Section before she was appointed to the state’s high court in 2010,” explains the Washington Examiner. “The justice is also a member of the Bench Dream Team, which is a group of judges in the Colorado judicial system that promotes diversity and inclusion.” (Read more from “Here’s What You Should Know About the Four Justices Who Deemed Trump Ineligible to Run for President” HERE)

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Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Obstruction Charge Case With Implications for Trump

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The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether a man involved in events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, can be charged for obstructing an official proceeding in a case that could have significant implications for the federal government’s prosecution of Donald Trump.

The defendant, Joseph Fischer, was indicted on seven charges after January 6, but the charge in question is a count under a provision enacted after the Enron scandal for anyone who “corruptly … obstructs, influences and impedes any official proceeding,” known as 18 U.S.C. 1512.

Trump’s allies argue that the provision was clearly intended to cover the destruction of evidence related to white-collar crime and that the Supreme Court’s decision to examine this issue is bad news for U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith and the government’s broad interpretation of the statute.

“Today was a bad day for Jack Smith, and a good day for the rule of law,” former U.S. Ambassador Ken Blackwell exclusively told Breitbart News.

Prosecutors say Fischer assaulted the police to disrupt the congressional certification of the results of the 2020 election and that his actions fit under 18 U.S.C. 1512. Although Trump is not part of Fisher’s case, the statute is a central piece of Smith’s criminal prosecution of the former president. (Read more from “Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Obstruction Charge Case With Implications for Trump” HERE)

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Supreme Court to Quickly Decide Whether or Not to Hear Trump Immunity Defense in Special Counsel Prosecution

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The U.S. Supreme Court will decide in coming weeks whether or not to expedite deciding if former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution on charges of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as Special Counsel Jack Smith petitioned the court Monday.

A federal trial court recently ruled in Smith’s favor that Trump is not immune from prosecution, but Smith’s request seeks to prevent a drawn-out Trump appeal that could delay his trial, currently set to begin March 4, 2024.

“It is of paramount public importance that respondent’s claims of immunity be resolved as expeditiously as possible,” Smith wrote in his petition to the Supreme Court.

Trump recently appealed Judge Tanya Chutkan’s immunity ruling, a step that suspended the trial until the question is resolved. By plucking the appeal from the appeals court, the Supreme Court could definitively resolve the question of Trump’s immunity earlier and prevent the beginning of Trump’s trial from slipping.

A federal grand jury in D.C. indicted Trump on four counts on August 1. Trump insists that his actions within the indictment fall within the “outer perimeter” of his official duties as president, and therefore he enjoys absolute immunity. He also argued that having been impeached for his actions on January 6 and then acquitted by the U.S. Senate preclude him from prosecution on double jeopardy grounds. (Read more from “Supreme Court to Quickly Decide Whether or Not to Hear Trump Immunity Defense in Special Counsel Prosecution” HERE)

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Supreme Court Declines To Take Up Challenge To ‘Conversion Therapy’ Ban

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The Supreme Court decided not to take up a challenge to Washington State’s ban on “conversion therapy” for minors on Monday, allowing a lower court decision upholding the law to stand.

The High Court was divided in its decision, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicating he would have heard the case and conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito penning separate dissents. The law, called SB 5722, was passed in 2018 and adds “conversion therapy” for minors to the list of violations that could cost a therapist their license.

“Under SB 5722, licensed counselors can speak with minors about gender dysphoria, but only if they convey the state-approved message of encouraging minors to explore their gender identities,” Justice Thomas wrote, continuing:

Expressing any other message is forbidden—even if the counselor’s clients ask for help to accept their biological sex. That is viewpoint-based and content-based discrimination in its purest form. As a result, SB 5722 is presumptively unconstitutional, and the state must show that it can survive strict scrutiny before enforcing it.

(Read more from “Supreme Court Declines To Take Up Challenge To ‘Conversion Therapy’ Ban” HERE)

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SCOTUS Dockets Emergency Application Over ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban

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The Supreme Court of the United States received and docketed an emergency application seeking an injunction against enforcement of Illinois’ “assault weapons” ban while the appeal process is ongoing.

The case is National Association for Gun Rights v. City of Naperville, Illinois. The plaintiffs include the National Association for Gun Rights, Robert C. Bevis, and Law Weapons, Inc. d/b/a Law Weapons and Supply.

The plaintiffs seek an en banc hearing before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and an injunction against enforcement of the Protect Illinois Communities Act until the hearing is held.

The Supreme Court’s Office of the Clerk of Court responded to the emergency application by noting that Justice Amy Coney Barrett has ordered a briefing. (Read more from “SCOTUS Dockets Emergency Application Over ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban” HERE)

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Biden DOJ’s Response to Pregnancy Center Attacks Shows ‘Double Standard,’ Pro-Life Advocates and Legal Experts Say

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In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, pregnancy centers, churches and abortion clinics have been hit with a wave of violence, but pro-life advocates and legal experts who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation raised concerns that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is applying a “double standard” when investigating these crimes.

Over 100 churches, pregnancy centers and their staff have been firebombed, vandalized, graffitied, assaulted and intimidated since the leak of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs opinion in May 2022, according to a May 2023 report from the Family Research Center. Yet the DOJ has failed to use the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which “prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services” and places of religious worship, to charge the individuals responsible, despite going after dozens of incidents targeting abortion clinics, according to advocates and legal experts that spoke with the DCNF.

“We have well over 300 churches, Catholic churches, that have been everything from firebombed, robbed and spray painted, alongside pregnancy care centers as well,” Tom McClusky, CatholicVote’s director of Government Affairs, told the DCNF. “And I believe the only time that the FACE Act has been used is for some people down in Florida and the Justice Department will not verify a [Freedom Of Information Act] request asking how many times has this been used.”

Rev. Jim Harden, president of the pro-life organization CompassCare, which was firebombed by pro-abortion activists in 2022, told the DCNF that he believed “without hesitation” the DOJ’s behavior “is a double standard.” He also noted the recent conviction of a woman, who spray-painted “LIARS” on one of the organization’s signs in New York’s Erie County. (Read more from “Biden DOJ’s Response to Pregnancy Center Attacks Shows ‘Double Standard,’ Pro-Life Advocates and Legal Experts Say” HERE)

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The Supreme Court Could Weigh In on Whether Colleges’ Speech Police Are Legal

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The Supreme Court could weigh in on the constitutionality of so-called bias response teams at colleges in the U.S., which free speech organizations say are used to discriminate against political viewpoints and to chill free speech.

Bias response teams are systems created to monitor alleged biased speech on college campuses, which often end up with students reporting other students for politically disfavored speech, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Students are then brought before administrators in what can be a long-drawn-out process that discourages students from speaking their minds and expressing disfavored viewpoints, which free speech advocates argue violates the First Amendment.

The Alumni Free Speech Alliance, a group of over a dozen free speech alumni organizations, alleges that bias response teams are used to target individuals and often cause students to self-censor, resulting in less intellectual freedom on campuses. The groups filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of advocate group Speech First, which is suing Virginia Tech over its bias-response team.

“In history, it’s always repressive regimes that pick a scapegoat and sometimes not even with aforethought. It just happens they rile up the crowds against them. And that’s what these bias systems are used for,” Chuck Davis, president of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, told the DCNF. (Read more from “The Supreme Court Could Weigh In on Whether Colleges’ Speech Police Are Legal” HERE)

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Trump’s Eligibility for 2024 Ballot Headed to U.S. Supreme Court?

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The Supreme Court could have the final word on the validity of 14th Amendment arguments for removing Trump from the 2024 ballot, legal experts on both sides of the debate told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Since the left-leaning group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed its lawsuit seeking to remove Trump from the ballot in Colorado on Sept. 6, cases have been filed in Minnesota, Oklahoma and New Mexico, among other states. With these and other efforts underway, legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Supreme Court will likely have to settle whether Trump should be removed from the ballot under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which bars certain government officials who took an oath to the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.

“If a Secretary of State disqualifies Trump from the ballot, then Trump and his campaign will have standing to sue and if the lower courts rule against Trump, then the case will most certainly end up in the Supreme Court on an appeal,” Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Hans von Spakovsky told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “For a number of constitutional and procedural reasons, the Court is almost certain to rule in Trump’s favor.”

In Maryland, Secretary of State Susan Lee expressed that she would consider removing Trump’s name from the ballot, according to The Daily Record. The Office of the Secretary of State is responsible for determining which names appear on the presidential ballot in Maryland. (Read more from “Trump’s Eligibility for 2024 Ballot Headed to U.S. Supreme Court?” HERE)

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Back From the Dead: Supreme Court Reinstates ‘Ghost’ Gun Restrictions

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The Supreme Court granted a request on Tuesday from the Biden administration to reinstate a federal regulation targeted at limiting the production of “ghost guns” that are difficult for law enforcement to trace.

By a 5-4 decision, the justices stalled a July 5 ruling by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, which blocked the 2022 rule nationwide pending the administration’s appeal. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh said they would have denied the application for a stay.

The Biden administration introduced the regulations last year to tackle what it cited as a dramatic uptick in the availability of ghost guns, which are known as firearm-making kits available online that people can assemble or sometimes even 3D print at home.

The regulations, implemented by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, require creators or sellers of the kits to obtain a special license, mark products with traceable serial numbers, and conduct background checks while maintaining records. Those rules led to challenges in court, and so far, two federal judges have sided in favor of the government. (Read more from “Back From the Dead: Supreme Court Reinstates ‘Ghost’ Gun Restrictions” HERE)

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Trump Calls on Supreme Court to ‘Intercede’ in Legal Battles

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Former President Donald Trump on Friday called on the Supreme Court to “intercede” in his mounting legal battles.

Trump excoriated his political enemies on social media one day after he pleaded not guilty to federal changes in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 Capitol riot and 2020 election interference.

“CRAZY! My political opponent has hit me with a barrage of weak lawsuits, including D.A., A.G., and others, which require massive amounts of my time & money to adjudicate,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform Friday morning.

Trump added that resources that could have gone to advertisements and rallies will now have to be spent fighting the “Radical Left Thugs” in courts across the country. . .

“It is Election Interference, & the Supreme Court must intercede. MAGA!” Trump wrote. (Read more from “Trump Calls on Supreme Court to ‘Intercede’ in Legal Battles” HERE)

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