Former President Donald Trump’s lawyer’s comments during oral arguments on his ballot challenge before the Supreme Court could come back to bite him in other cases, Democratic election attorney Marc Elias predicted on Thursday.
The Supreme Court justices widely expressed skepticism that Colorado or any state could boot Trump off the ballot under the Constitution’s “Insurrection Clause” but Elias said that doesn’t mean “that the argument itself was a total loss.”
“I think there were some things that came out of it that actually may wind up having some long-term consequences, including, by the way, Donald Trump's lawyer saying that though January 6th was not an insurrection, the events were shameful, criminal, and violent. I think Donald Trump, in some other courtrooms, is going to be arguing that it was not criminal and violent,” Elias said.
“He's got nine justices looking at him today and figures we'll worry about tomorrow tomorrow. That doesn't mean when that tomorrow doesn't come, right, tomorrow does come. But I think he made those concessions, whether it was playing this democracy card that may frankly come back to haunt him in some of the election cases that I and others litigate, or it is this violent point that, you know, Donald Trump is — has said it was a peaceful gathering.
"I think he thinks the way he wins the day today was to take the insurrection point off the table," he added. "And you know, he did. You know, there were almost no questions from the court after that about whether or not it was an insurrection."
