Chief Justice Roberts Confronts Anti-Trump Lawyer About Prospect of Dems Getting Booted from Future Ballots: ‘Pretty Daunting Consequence’

Chief Justice John Roberts pressed Colorado voters attorney Jason Murray Thursday about what he called a “pretty daunting consequence” of allowing each state to decide who will, and who will not, remain on an election ballot.

The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether under the 14th Amendment, former President Donald Trump should be excluded from running for office again due to his actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

“In very quick order, I would expect — though my predictions never have been correct — I would expect that, you know, a goodly number of states will say, ‘Whoever the Democratic candidate is, you’re off the ballot,’ and others for the Republican candidate, “You’re off the ballot,” and it will come down to just a handful of states that are going to decide the presidential election. That’s a pretty daunting consequence,” Roberts said.

The two then sparred about how each state might define the word “insurrection.”

MURRAY: Well, certainly, your honor, the fact that there are potential frivolous applications of a constitutional provision isn’t a reason —

ROBERTS: Well now, hold on. You might think they’re frivolous, but the people who are bringing them may not think they’re frivolous. Insurrection is a broad term and if there is some debate about it, I suppose that will go into the decision and then eventually what, we would be deciding whether it was an insurrection when one president did something, as opposed to someone doing something else? And what do we do? Do we wait until near the time of counting the ballots and sort of go through which states are valid and which states aren’t?

MURRAY: There’s a reason section 3 has been dormant for 150 years and it’s because we haven’t seen anything like January 6th since Reconstruction. Insurrection against the Constitution is something extraordinary.

ROBERTS:  It seems to me you’re avoiding the question, which is, other states may have different views about what constitutes insurrection. And now you’re saying, “Well, it’s all right because somebody — presumably us — are going to decide, well, they said they thought there was an insurrection, but they were wrong.” And maybe they thought it was right, and we’d have to develop rules for what constitutes an insurrection.

MURRAY: Yes, your honor, just like this court interprets other constitutional provisions, this court can make clear that an insurrection against the constitution is something extraordinary. And in particular it really requires a concerted group effort to resist through violence, not some ordinary application of state or federal law, but the functions mandated by the Constitution itself.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.