Jones Day VS Trump

Jones Day, a law firm that worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 election campaigns, is working to overturn the decision to disqualify the former president from the Colorado ballots.

The powerful firm, which announced last year that it will not be working on Trump’s 2024 campaign, has been hired by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) as it tries to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to quash a decision to ban Trump from running for president over claims he violated the Constitution’s insurrection clause.

In a historic ruling in December, the Colorado Supreme Court banned Trump from running for president in the state for violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment during the January 6 riot. The amendment states that a person who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking an oath of office to support the Constitution should be barred from running for office again.

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination, is also appealing a similar ruling in Maine which disqualified him from the presidential ballots in the state for allegedly engaging in insurrection during the Capitol riot. That appeal was made to a Maine Superior Court.

Jones Day played a major role in Trump’s successful 2016 White House bid, acting as counsel to his campaign.

Trump later enlisted several of Jones Day’s lawyers into his administration, including Don McGahn for his White House counsel and Noel Francisco as solicitor general. Jones Day’s John Gore and Hashim Mooppan also worked in the Department of Justice during the Trump administration before returning to the firm.

Gore, Francisco and Mooppan, along with fellow Jones Day lawyer Stewart Crosland, have now been hired by NRSC to submit arguments in support of Trump’s appeal before the Supreme Court.

Jones Day has been contacted for comment via email.

The firm has also worked with numerous other GOP figures down the years, with the Republican National Committee paying Jones Day more than $1.2 million over a two year period, Bloomberg reported in February 2023.

In their amicus brief to SCOTUS, the Jones Day lawyers argued that the Colorado Supreme Court had overstepped its jurisdiction when it ruled that Trump cannot run for office in the state. The filings to the Supreme Court also argued that the wording of Section 3 identifies a disqualification from “serving in certain offices,” but does not disqualify a covered person from running for office.

“So even if the Colorado Supreme Court were correct that President Trump cannot take office on Inauguration Day, that court had no basis to hold that he cannot run for office on Election Day,” the brief said.

“The right of all citizens to participate in free and fair elections and to vote for the candidate of their choice is the Constitution’s bedrock guarantee of American democracy.

“The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision barring President Trump from the Republican Party’s primary election ballot breaches that guarantee and, if left standing, threatens to thwart the democratic process and the will of the American people in 2024 and beyond,” the brief adds.