Takeaways from the Supreme Court oral arguments on the Trump 14th Amendment case

CNN —

The Supreme Court signaled Thursday it is poised to back former President Donald Trump and fend off a blockbuster challenge to his eligibility to appear on Colorado’s ballot, potentially by a wide margin.

During more than two hours of arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts and the high court’s other conservative justices peppered the lawyers representing Trump’s challengers with a series of questions that suggested they were seeking a way to side with the former president – most likely based on reasoning that doesn’t address the question of whether he is or isn’t an insurrectionist.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media at one of his properties, 40 Wall Street, following closing arguments at his civil fraud trial on January 11, 2024 in New York City. The former president, who is currently the front runner for the Republican nomination, attended the closing arguments for the trial which will now go to the judge for the penalty phase in which New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking $370 million in damages and to prohibit Trump from doing business in the state.

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Even some members of the court’s liberal wing posed difficult questions to the lawyers opposed to Trump.

At issue is a provision in the post-Civil War14th Amendment that bars certain public officials from serving in the government again if they took part in an insurrection. The voters who challenged Trump say his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol makes him ineligible under that “insurrection ban.”

The case is the most significant elections dispute the justices have been forced to confront since the Bush v. Gore decision