By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a case involving whether former President Donald Trump should be disqualified from the 2024 election under a constitutional provision barring anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding public office.
The justices rejected an appeal by John Anthony Castro, a Texas tax consultant who has mounted a long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination, of a lower court’s finding that he lacked the legal standing to sue seeking Trump’s disqualification under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Castro has cited Trump’s actions relating to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by the then-president’s supporters as insurrection.
This may not be the final time that the Supreme Court is asked to weigh in on the subject. Other litigation on the 14th amendment and Trump is still playing out in lower courts.
The justices announced their action on the first day of their new nine-month term.
The lawsuit, filed by Castro in federal court in Florida, sought to have Trump declared ineligible to pursue public office and block him from applying to appear on the ballot in any U.S. state.
Castro cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars any person from holding federal or state office who took an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” The amendment was ratified in the aftermath of the American Civil War of 1861-1865 in which southern states rebelled in a bid for secession.
Castro argued that Trump provided “aid or comfort” to an insurrection by expressing sympathy toward his supporters who stormed the Capitol in a failed bid to block Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over him, and by saying he would consider pardoning them if re-elected.
A federal judge in June dismissed Castro’s lawsuit, finding that he had failed to show a legal injury, which prompted Castro to appeal both to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.
Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden in 2024, has continued to make the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.
Other legal efforts to disqualify Trump based on the 14th Amendment are underway including a Sept. 6 lawsuit filed by the nonpartisan group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to try to block Trump from appearing on the presidential ballot in Colorado if he wins the Republican nomination.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
