Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) said this week that former President Donald Trump was a significant danger to the United States. The secretary of state’s comments came just weeks after the Colorado Supreme Court barred the former president from that state’s Republican presidential primary election.
The secretary of state supported her state’s Colorado Supreme Court decision preventing him from appearing on the ballot. She argued that Trump’s actions before the Jan. 6, 2021 protest made him ineligible for election.
During a CNN interview, Griswold said that her argument was the “clear statement that states can stop oath-breaking insurrectionists from appearing on our ballots. I imagine that the Supreme Court may focus its questions on the role of state law and how the Constitution interacts with state law.”
The secretary of state further argued that Trump “incited” the events of that day and that the decision to allow him on the ballot or not would come before a court. She said that there was “no get-out-of-jail-free card for Trump.” She added that she believed the state supreme court “got it right.”
Griswold further argued that Trump’s actions after the 2020 election were not correct and that he should be “held accountable.”
Reminder that the judge that decided Donald Trump engaged in insurrection donated money to Jena Griswold’s campaign and failed to recuse herself even though Griswold was a named party in the lawsuit. https://t.co/DbU7nCLKBE
— Mr T 2 (@GovtsTheProblem) February 3, 2024
“And whether it’s in the other cases you have talked about tonight or this case, he is a clear threat to this country. I believe he’s one of the largest dangers to this country,” she said.
Griswold was not the only secretary of state to speak out against the former president. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) unilaterally declared Trump ineligible for that state’s primary ballot, pending a court review.
Bellows claimed that the former president was not permitted on the ballot due to the ‘insurrection’ clause in the 14th Amendment. The secretary of state said that she did not “reach this conclusion lightly.” She said that her action was unprecedented.
“I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection,” she argued.
At the time, the Trump campaign said that it was the “attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter.”
