Spiraling Donald Trump is now appealing a court ruling that he won
Why would you appeal a court ruling when you’ve won? Mostly because you’re an arrogant asshole who doesn’t like what the judge had to say about you. The truth does hurt sometimes, doesn’t it? Judge Sarah Wallace of Colorado ruled last week that Donald Trump could remain on that state’s ballot for the 2024 election. Initially, Trump’s lawyers were jumping for joy, bragging about democracy and all the other things they don’t believe in but use as props. Now, they’re suddenly appealing, right next to the plaintiffs. So, what’s the problem? The things that Judge Wallace had to say about Trump during her ruling. Even though she found in Trump’s favor, the Judge was very forceful in her view that Trump “engaged in an insurrection” with his actions on January 6. That written statement likely sticks in Trump craw more than anything else.
Judge Wallace was very specific in the order she issued. She wrote that Trump incited the insurrection with his speech at the White House Ellipse. She even included examples, noting that Trump told his supporters at least 20 times to “fight” or “You will have an illegitimate president.” No, Trump was the illegitimate president. How he ever got past people to get in there is astonishing. Initially, people believed that Trump was a good businessman and perhaps that’s what we needed in the White House. It didn’t take long, however, to find out that he was a failed businessman who was very familiar with the bankruptcy codes. He had basically done nothing, and it was that nothing that he brought to the White House. For him, it was always about the power of the office and his penchant to use that power for bad rather than good.
Judge Wallace also found that Trump’s language was “incendiary rhetoric” from “a speaker who routinely embraced political violence and had inflamed the anger of his supporters leading up to the certification,” and “was likely to incite imminent lawlessness and disorder.” She concluded in her order that: “the events on and around January 6, 2021, easily satisfy this definition of ‘insurrection’.” Yet, she chose not to leave him off the ballot because of her interpretation of the 14th Amendment that it did not name the office of president. Wallace specifically found: “for whatever reason the drafters of Section Three [of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution] did not intend to include a person who had only taken the presidential oath.” Constitutional experts disagree with Judge Wallace and believe the clause specifically points to the president.
Indeed, if the clause removes the right to run for senators or representatives, surely it includes the highest office where even more damage can be caused by an insurrectionist. It could well be that Judge Wallace didn’t want to make the call and is leaving it to the Court of Appeals, but that’s a chickenshit move. If she found him guilty of insurrection, she should have ordered him off the ballot as the plaintiffs asked. After all, that is what they sought to prove, and they were successful.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years