Donald Trump's Supreme Court Filing Makes Bold New Statement

Former President Donald Trump's latest filing to the Supreme Court contains a bold statement about his status in the 2024 presidential nomination.

Trump is currently seeking the Republican Party's nomination for president in his effort to secure a second term in the White House after his loss to Joe Biden in 2020. He is, at this stage, all but completely guaranteed to secure the nomination, having notched significant victories in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is the only major candidate left in the running, though polls indicate her chances are slim.

While Trump's eventual nomination by the GOP seems all but inevitable, the party cannot yet call him the "presumptive nominee," a term used for candidates who have reached the required number of delegates to secure the nomination but have yet to be formally given the nomination. For the Republican Party, this number is 1,215, and typically it cannot be reached until some point in March. The Republican National Committee (RNC) had recently planned to hold a vote on declaring Trump the presumptive nominee early, but these plans were scrapped.

Nevertheless, in a recent filing before the Supreme Court, Trump's legal team made the choice to specifically refer to him as the "presumptive nominee" for the Republican. The filing, a copy of which was viewed by Newsweek, came as part of the former president's effort to contest his removal from the Colorado ballot, after the state's own Supreme Court ruled that Trump was ineligible to run for office there due to his participation in the leadup to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The instance of the term comes during a passage in which the legal team argues that, as the leading candidate of a major U.S. political party, it is unjust to remove him from ballots. Elsewhere in the document, they also argue that Trump's involvement with the events of January 6 does not constitute him having engaged "in insurrection," for which individuals can be ruled ineligible to hold elected office under the 14th Amendment.

"[Former President] Donald J. Trump won the Iowa caucuses with the largest margin ever for a non-incumbent and the New Hampshire primary with the most votes of any candidate from either party. He is the presumptive Republican nominee and the leading candidate for President of the United States. In our system of 'government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,' the American people—not courts or election officials—should choose the next President of the United States."

Newsweek reached out to the Republican National Committee via email on Monday evening for comment.