US supreme court ‘erred badly’ with Trump ruling, leading US historian says

The US supreme court “erred badly” in ruling Colorado was wrong to seek to remove Donald Trump from the ballot for inciting the January 6 insurrection, a leading historian and analyst of presidential politics said.

The court handed down its unanimous ruling on Monday, a day before Colorado became one of 16 states and one US territory to hold a Super Tuesday primary.

“The supreme court erred badly based on our amicus brief and our review of history, in claiming that a candidate for federal office can only be disqualified by an act of Congress,” Allan Lichtman said, speaking to reporters with three other historians who signed the brief arguing Trump should be removed.

Lichtman is a professor at American University in Washington DC who has correctly predicted the outcome of every presidential election since 1984, using a system of “keys to the White House” he co-devised.

With Trump closing on the Republican nomination, Lichtman recently said Joe Biden held five keys to Trump’s three, with five up for grabs.

Most analysts and pollsters give Trump the edge, despite his facing 91 criminal charges (17 for election subversion, 40 for retention of classified documents and 34 over hush-money payments to an adult film star) and suffering multimillion-dollar penalties in civil suits regarding his business affairs and a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.

But with Colorado’s attempt to remove Trump from the ballot rejected by the supreme court – ensuring the same fate for efforts in Maine and Illinois – he is poised to secure the Republican nomination and potentially return to office.

The Colorado case attracted numerous amicus briefs. Lichtman and 24 other historians argued Trump should be removed from the ballot under