Brazile: Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices don’t owe him ‘one thing’ on ballot ban
Former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile said on Sunday that U.S. Supreme Court justices appointed by former President Trump don’t owe him “one thing” and should not treat him differently when they hear arguments in his appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court decision removing the former president from the ballot under the 14th Amendment.
The U.S. Supreme Court announced late Friday it would hear Trump’s appeal of the Colorado decision, which affirmed a lower court ruling that Trump engaged in insurrection but ruled that meant, under the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection clause,” Trump could not hold public office again.
Trump appointed three of the nine justices to the bench and resisted pressure to pull the nomination of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who faced sexual assault allegations during the confirmation process and whose appointment to the court was almost derailed.
“Brett Kavanaugh and the Republican justices do not owe Donald Trump one thing,” Brazile said in a panel discussion on ABC News’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
“This notion that somehow or another he's going to be treated unfairly, no. He should be subjected to the same laws, the same consequences, the same accountability as every other American. No one is above the law,” Brazile said.
Brazile’s remarks come as pundits have speculated on how the justices will decide what is likely to be one of the most important cases this year.
Concern about whether the justices would feel obliged to side with Trump increased when Trump’s attorney appeared on Fox News’s “Hannity” one day before the high court agreed to hear the case.
“I think it should be a slam dunk in the Supreme Court. I have faith in them,” Trump attorney Alina Habba told Hannity on Thursday. “You know, people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the President went through how to get into place, he’ll step up.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sharply criticized these remarks, comparing them to “mobsters’” language.
“This is the way that New York mobsters think about judges,” Raskin told MSNBC Friday. “‘Yeah, we own that one. We own that one. Get in that court. That guy’s in our pocket.’ And for fascists and authoritarian parties and movements, the law is really not what you know, but it’s who you know. And it’s always better for them to know the judge than to know the law.”
“But to know the law here is to understand that Donald Trump is disqualified,” he added.