Trump’s apologists say it doesn’t matter if he’s guilty of insurrection. That’s not true | Mark Graber

Conservatives who used to rail against rulings that freed criminal suspects on technicalities now say the question of Trump's guilt doesn't affect whether he can be president

Donald Trump may be the only person about whom prominent conservatives think innocence is irrelevant. Voters in many states filed lawsuits arguing that Trump was constitutionally disqualified from the presidency, under section 3 of the 14th amendment, having committed treason against the United States when resisting by force the peaceful transfer of presidential power. The Colorado supreme court agreed. Trump and his lawyers responded by waving numerous constitutional technicalities that they claimed exempted traitors from constitutional disqualification, while barely making any effort to refute charges that the former president committed treason on 6 January 2021.

On Monday, all nine justices on the US supreme court agreed that Donald Trump should remain on the presidential ballot even if he is, in the words of Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, an oathbreaking insurrectionist". No one challenged that finding.