Retired Federal Judge J. Michael Luttig said Tuesday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360″ that he believed the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling that former President Donald Trump was not eligible to appear on the state’s ballot was “unassailable.”
Luttig said, “The individual justices of the Colorado Supreme Court brought honor to their court and as well to the state and federal judiciaries with their opinion tonight in this historic case.”
He continued, “The court meticulously and methodically addressed the many state issues and federal Constitutional issues that were involved in the case. They marshaled the support for each, and every one of their decisions of state law and federal constitutional law as well as any judge could do. Their opinion is unassailable under the objective law of the federal constitution and Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court of the United States ought to affirm this decision today.”
Luttig added, “The Colorado Supreme Court is the first court, appellate court in any state, to rule on the applicability of Section 3 to the former president. The other cases that have been decided have been decided on state law grounds and/or jurisdictional grounds. So, this case stands alone. I called it unassailable because, as you noted, the preeminent constitutional scholar of our time, Professor Laurence Tribe, and I have been studying this for three years now in the wake of January 6. Professor Tribe has been studying Section 3 of the 14th Amendment literally for his entire career. So when we say, and I’m speaking for professor tribe tonight, who I spoke to earlier, that the opinion is unassailable. That means he and I have taken into account every single argument contrary to every point made by the court today and concluding all of the contrary evidence to the opinion tonight, and it is unassailable.”
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