When Former Watergate Prosecutor Called Donald Trump’s Colorado Win 'Unlawful'

Editor's note: This article was originally published on November 25, 2023. It has since been updated.

Last year, MSNBC legal analyst and former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks weighed in on Donald Trump's last year's legal victory in Colorado. The former President won a case in November 2023, in Colorado after a state judge allowed him to remain on the state's ballot, even though it was ascertained that Trump 'engaged in insurrection,' as per NBC News. Trump said that the media was experiencing a 'meltdown' after it was decided that he would be on the ballot while he celebrated the victory at a rally. However, Wine Banks had another opinion about Trump's short-lived success.

As per Raw Story, while appearing on MSNBC's American Voices with Alicia Menendez, she was asked if it was reasonable to say that a public servant who participated in an insurrection be rendered ineligible to run for office again, 'excluding the president.' The former General Counsel of the US Army reasoned: "I don't think that's what our founders intended," Wine-Banks said. "The language of the 14th amendment says anyone, any officer, military, or civil, and the president is both a civil officer of the United States and the military commander in chief, so he falls into both of those categories."

The veteran legal analyst continued: "So the argument that he is not an officer and that there is a difference between his oath and the oath that a senator takes, is a difference without a distinction. The difference between protection and support doesn't make any sense to me. Of course, protection is even a higher burden. If the president has to protect the constitution, he also has to support it."

Wine-Banks went on to say during the interview that the said judge's decision is unlawful: "Of course, on the facts, she is right, and she made a factual finding that he is insurrectionist. And that would bar him if he were an officer. And I believe that any higher court will find that it was the intent to bar such a person from holding the office of president and that he will be barred." 

Tweeting in disagreement with the decision, Wine-Banks had also written on X: "Colorado Supreme Court Agrees to Take Up Trump’s 14th Amendment Case. Arguments Dec 6. I believe the CO Supreme Court will agree with the trial judge on facts (Trump guilty of insurrection) but disagree on law & hold #TFG is barred from office by the 14th A."

As reported earlier by HuffPost, Wine-Banks had also alleged that Trump would be destroyed during 'cross-examination.' The 2024 presidential hopeful's legal team sought 'presidential immunity' during the trial. But the former Watergate prosecutor pointed out that this ploy would only work if Trump “was doing something presidential, something within his job description." But, she clarified, 'it was his job as a candidate, and the candidate is a different thing' and that Trump couldn't claim he was 'acting as president when he was trying to take down the election.'

“That is a question of fact that will have to be determined,” Wine-Banks added. “The jury will say, ‘Yes, he was trying to take it down.’ He’s saying, ‘No I wasn’t, I was trying to protect election integrity.’ No evidence supports that, and if he testifies that, he will be destroyed on cross-examination.”