Outside parties have filed hundreds of pages of friend-of-the-court briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court concerning Trump's appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court ruling barring him from the ballot on grounds of insurrection, reports Colorado Newsline. Two thirds of the filings came from supporters of Trump's appeal, including 200 Republicans in Congress, officeholders in over 25 GOP-controlled states and several of Trump’s former rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. Roughly a dozen other briefs were filed in support of neither party, seeking instead to support legal arguments made by proponents of Trump's disqualification and reject theories advanced by Trump’s legal team. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on Feb. 8.
Only one sitting Democratic officeholder at either the state or federal levels, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, filed a brief before the court. Though her brief "takes no position" on Trump's eligibility to run, she asks court for a decisive ruling on a question of “monumental significance.” The briefs submitted to the court touch on questions such as whether the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol amounted to an “insurrection” and whether Trump “engaged” in it; and whether the president is an “officer of the United States” as covered by Section 3. Briefs filed in support of Trump's eligibility argue that the president is not an "officer of the United States" and that the 14th Amendment can't be enforced without an act by Congress.