Politics

Ramaswamy warns liberal justices ‘buying political latitude’ with 9-0 ruling as more Trump cases are on the horizon

Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy praised the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling against Colorado’s removal of former President Trump from the 2024 ballot but warned of potential foreshadowing within the written decision.

After the decision was handed down, Ramaswamy echoed Trump’s belief that it represented a “case of national unity,” and that the United States cannot essentially be united if a “patchwork” of states can make unilateral decisions about a national candidate’s eligibility beyond the typical age and tenure statutes.

“That doesn’t work if we’re one nation. So that’s what this case was really about,” he said. “I do think that this is not just about President Trump, but about the future unity of our country itself. And the Supreme Court, 9-0, came down on the right side of that question.”

Of the concurrence written by the three liberal justices, Biden appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson and Obama appointees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, Ramaswamy said the subtext therein is that the bench is “buying themselves some political latitude to say there’s going to be other Trump related cases that come before the Supreme Court now.”

“What you see from the liberal justices is – the three of them did swing over for the 9-0 unanimous ruling here, but they say other actors in the federal government, even outside of Congress, could have had that authority anyway,” he said.

“I think they’re buying themselves some leash for going in a different direction in some of those other cases,” he told “Hannity.”

Ramaswamy praised the Supreme Court's unanimous ruling against the removal of former President Trump from the 2024 ballot.
Ramaswamy praised the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling against the removal of former President Trump from the 2024 Colorado ballot. Supreme Court of the United States via Getty Images

Trump indeed may find himself in front of the high court again in Trump v. United States, better known as the Trump immunity case, wherein it will be determined whether the then-president would be immune from allegations stemming from January 6, 2021 including those from Special Counsel Jack Smith.

News outlets including the New Yorker also reported an upcoming case involving now-former North Cornwall, Pa. police officer Joseph Fischer in regard to the filing of his obstructing-an-official-proceeding charge during the Capitol riot could also affect Trump’s charges from Smith.

Ramaswamy said the John Roberts era on the court has been focused on public perception of its “institutional legitimacy” and that therefore the 9-0 unanimity seen Monday was an “outstanding outcome.”

Ramaswamy says he believes the justices are "buying themselves some leash" for future political decisions.
Ramaswamy says he believes the justices are “buying themselves some leash” for future political decisions. Ron Sachs – CNP / MEGA

But, he reiterated that the liberal justices’ concurrence did “plant seeds for them potentially going a different way in future cases that are coming down the pike.”

The three liberals claimed the court’s “majority [went] beyond the necessities of this case to limit how Section III [of the Fourteenth Amendment] can bar an oathbreaking insurrectionist from becoming President.”

“Although we agree that Colorado cannot enforce Section III, we protest the majority’s effort to use this case to define the limits of federal enforcement of the provision,” Jackson, Sotomayor and Kagan wrote.

On the whole, Ramaswamy said attempts to nix Trump from the ballot could have negative long-term consequences for the nation.

“[It could be] undoing what we set this country into motion in 1776: That’s a monarchy, not a democracy – where one autocrat, one monarch, one individual gets to decide who the people can and cannot elect,” he said.

“We the people settle our differences at the ballot box, able to vote for whoever we want, where every person has a voice and a vote in that democratic process,” Ramaswamy added, calling that quality our “national identity.”