Brett Kavanaugh, the US supreme court justice, will “step up” for Donald Trump and help defeat attempts to remove the former president from the ballot in Colorado and Maine for inciting an insurrection, a Trump lawyer said.
“I think it should be a slam dunk in the supreme court,” Alina Habba told Fox News on Thursday night. “I have faith in them.
“You know, people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place, he’ll step up. Those people will step up. Not because they’re pro-Trump but because they’re pro-law, because they’re pro-fairness. And the law on this is very clear.”
Kavanaugh was the second of three justices appointed by Trump, creating a 6-3 rightwing majority that has delivered major Republican victories including removing the federal right to abortion and loosening gun control laws.
Habba’s reference to Trump “going through hell” was to a stormy confirmation during which Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault, which he angrily denied. Trump reportedly wavered on Kavanaugh, only for senior Republicans to persuade him to stay strong.
Observers were quick to notice Habba’s apparent invitation to corruption.
Michael Kagan, a law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said: “Legal ethics alert. If … Kavanaugh feels in any way that he owes Trump and will ‘step up’, then [Habba] should be sanctioned by the bar for saying this on TV and thus trying to prejudice a proceeding.”
Last month, the Colorado supreme court and the Maine secretary of state ruled that Trump should be removed from the ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, passed after the civil war to stop insurrectionists holding office.
Trump incited the deadly January 6 attack on Congress in 2021, an attempt to stop certification of his defeat by Joe Biden. Impeached but acquitted, he is now the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination this year.
Trump has appealed both state rulings. In a supreme court filing in the Colorado case, lawyers argued that only Congress could resolve such a dispute and that the presidency was not an office of state as defined in the 14th amendment.
The relevant text does not mention the presidency or vice-presidency. ABC News has reported exchanges in debate in 1866 in which those positions are covered.
The supreme court has not yet said if it will consider the matter.
Norm Eisen, a White House ethics tsar turned CNN legal analyst, said: “It’s likely … the supreme court will move to resolve this. They may do it quickly. They may not do it quickly because by filing this petition … Trump has stayed the Colorado proceedings. So at the moment he remains on the ballot. The supreme court does have to speak to it.”
Habba said:
“[Trump] has not been charged with insurrection. He has not been prosecuted for it. He has not been found guilty of it.”
She then made her prediction about Kavanaugh and other justices “stepping up”.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
