Supreme Court Gives Colorado Secretary of State 10 Minutes to Argue Why Trump Should Be Blocked From Ballot

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold speaks during a committee meeting in Baton Rouge, La. on July 8, 2022. (Matthew Hinton/AP Photo)

from The Epoch Times

By Tom Ozimek 2/2/2024

Updated: 2/3/2024

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday granted Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold—who called former President Donald Trump an “ineligible insurrectionist”—just 10 minutes at a hearing next week to argue before the court why she thinks he should be barred from the ballot.

Ms. Griswold, a Democrat and fierce Trump critic, has filed multiple briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court, which is weighing whether to rule in favor of or against the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to bar President Trump from the ballot on 14th amendment grounds.

In a Jan. 26 filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, Ms. Griswold asked for enlargement and division of time for oral arguments at a hearing next week so that she could have time to provide the court with an “important perspective” on Colorado’s election laws.

The Supreme Court said in its decision that it would grant Ms. Griswold just 10 minutes to make her case for why, according to her subsequent Jan. 31 filing, President Trump supposedly engaged in an insurrection and so should be barred from appearing on Colorado’s presidential ballot.

Even though Ms. Griswold did not take a position on President Trump’s eligibility during a trial in district court, she’s revealed her anti-Trump bias repeatedly, including when she went on CNN to denounce the former president as a “danger to American democracy.”

But when, on appeal, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled to bar President Trump from the ballot based on the idea that he had “engaged in insurrection” by delivering a speech on Jan. 6, Ms. Griswold said the court “got it right.”

Ms. Griswold will now get 10 minutes on Feb. 8 to make her case as to why she thinks that, when President Trump told his supporters to demonstrate “peacefully and patriotically” before Congress, he should be prohibited from running for the nation’s highest office—even though he’s the frontrunner by far for the Republican presidential nomination.