Judges in the US state of Colorado’s Supreme Court are being kept under special police guard after they declared ex-president Donald Trump ineligible in the upcoming presidential election this week.
Police officers are patrolling the judges’ residences in Denver and the federal police FBI has been called in due to some kind of incident, but the authorities do not elaborate on what the threat picture consists of.
“We will resolutely investigate all threats and violence committed by individuals who justify their actions with extremist views, regardless of motive,” said a spokesperson for the FBI’s Denver office.
On Thursday evening, police officers went to a judge’s home, but it is suspected to have been a false alarm.
The ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court is based on a section from 1866 in the Constitution that prohibits insurgents from running in US elections.
The judges there judge that Donald Trump was involved in the storming of the US Congress in Washington DC on January 6, 2021, when he for a long time described his loss in the presidential election as rigged and called on his loyalists to go to the Congress to prevent the result from being determined.
In practice, the ruling means that Donald Trump is washed out of the Republican primaries in Colorado, and by extension it forces the US Supreme Court in Washington DC to take a position on the matter in an expected appeal.