The state Supreme Court has blocked the former president from appearing on the ballot in next year's presidential election. The court cited the US Constitution's insurrection clause. The Supreme Court in the US state of Colorado ruled on Tuesday evening that former President Donald Trump was disqualified from holding office over his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol building in Washington DC. The ruling blocks Trump from appearing on the ballot in Colorado for the presidential election set to take place in November next year. "A majority of the court holds that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment," the court wrote in its 4-3 decision.   Trump's team to appeal decision A Trump spokesman called the Colorado ruling "undemocratic" and vowed to appeal to the US Supreme Court, which has a two-thirds Conservative majority. The same six members of the Supreme Court have banned affirmative action this year and last year overturned Roe vs. Wade protection for abortion rights. "The Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision tonight and we will swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision," Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. His campaign has condemned 14th Amendment challenges as an attempt to deny millions of voters their preferred choice for president. The ruling makes Trump the first presidential candidate in US history to be considered ineligible for the White House under a rarely used provision of the US Constitution that bars officials who have engaged in "insurrection or rebellion" from holding office. Must-win states could follow Colorado's lead The ruling applies only to the state's March 5 Republican primary, but its conclusion would likely also affect Trump’s status for the November 5 general election. Nonpartisan US election forecasters view Colorado as safely Democratic, meaning that President Joe Biden will likely carry the state regardless of Trump's fate. Trump lost Colorado by 13 percentage points in 2020 and doesn't need the state to win next year's presidential election. But the danger for the former president is that more courts and election officials could follow Colorado's lead and exclude Trump from must-win states. Colorado officials say the issue must be settled by January 5, the deadline for the state to print its presidential primary ballots. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed nationally to disqualify Trump under Section 3, which was designed to keep former Confederates from returning to government after the Civil War. It bars from office anyone who swore an oath to "support" the Constitution and then "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against it, and has been used only a handful of times since the decade after the Civil War.

An attack at the US Capitol complex in Washington DC has left one police officer dead and another in hospital with injuries. A car crashed into a security barrier before the driver lunged towards the officers with a knife, police said. The officers opened fire and the suspect was shot dead. Authorities said the attack, which came three months after January's deadly Capitol riots, did not appear to be terrorism-related. "Whether the attack was at law enforcement, or whoever, we have a responsibility to get to the bottom of it and we'll do that," Robert Contee, the acting chief of Washington DC's Metropolitan Police Department, said at a news conference. Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman said it was "with a very, very heavy heart that I announce one of our officers has succumbed to his injuries". In a later statement, she named the officer as William "Billy" Evans, who had been a member of the Capitol Police for 18 years and was part of the department's first responders unit. "Please keep Officer Evans and his family in your thoughts and prayers," she said. CNN producer Kristin Wilson described him as "the kindest person". Two law enforcement sources involved in the investigation told BBC partner CBS News that the suspect in the attack was 25-year-old Noah Green from Indiana. They said that no prior information about him had been found on any police databases. In a post from mid-March on a now-deleted Facebook page, Green wrote that he had recently left his job, "partly due to afflictions, but ultimately, in search of a spiritual journey". He added he had been suffering the "side effects of drugs I was intaking unknowingly" and wrote extensively of his interest in the black nationalist religious organisation, Nation of Islam. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to the BBC that the page belonged to Green. "After this horrific event, our thoughts are with the Capitol Police and their loved ones," the company said in a statement. "We have designated the incident under our Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, which means we have removed the suspect's accounts from Facebook and Instagram, and are removing any content that praises, supports, or represents the attack or the suspect. We are in contact with law enforcement as they conduct their investigation." An increased security presence remains around the Capitol building, where the US Congress sits. Congress is currently in recess, meaning the majority of politicians were not at the Capitol complex at the time of the attack. Source: BBC AH

The US House of Representatives has impeached President Donald Trump for "incitement of insurrection" at last week's Capitol riot. Ten Republicans sided with Democrats to impeach the president by 232-197. He is the first president in US history to be impeached twice, or charged with crimes by Congress. Donald Trump, a Republican, will now face a trial in the Senate, where if convicted he could face being barred from ever holding office again. But he will not have to quit the White House before his term ends in one week because the Senate will not reconvene in time. Trump leaves office on 20 January following his election defeat last November to Democrat Joe Biden. The Democratic-controlled House voted on Wednesday after several hours of impassioned debate as armed National Guard troops kept watch inside and outside the Capitol. The FBI has warned of possible armed protests planned for Washington DC and all 50 US state capitals ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration next week. In a video released after the vote in Congress, Trump called on his followers to remain peaceful but he did not refer to the fact that he had been impeached. "Violence and vandalism have no place in our country... No true supporter of mine would ever endorse political violence," he said, striking a sombre and conciliatory tone. What was Trump charged with? Impeachment charges are political, not criminal. The president was accused by Congress of inciting the storming of the Capitol with a speech on 6 January to a rally outside the White House. He urged his supporters to "peacefully and patriotically" make their voices heard, but also to "fight like hell" against an election that he falsely told them had been stolen. Following Trump's remarks, his supporters broke into the Capitol, forcing lawmakers to suspend certification of election results and take shelter. The building was placed on lockdown and five people died in the melee. The article of impeachment stated that Donald Trump "repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the presidential election results were fraudulent and should not be accepted". It says he then repeated these claims and "willfully made statements to the crowd that encouraged and foreseeably resulted in lawless action at the Capitol", leading to the violence and loss of life. "President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government, threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of government." Last week, 139 Republicans voted against accepting the result of the 2020 election and Trump's defeat. What did lawmakers say during the debate? Members of Congress made statements for and against the vote in the same chamber where they hid under chairs and donned gas masks as rioters tried to force their way inside last week. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said on the House floor: "The president of the United States incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion against our common country. "He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love." Democratic congressman Julian Castro called Trump "the most dangerous man to ever occupy the Oval Office". Most Republicans did not seek to defend Donald Trump's rhetoric, instead arguing that the impeachment had bypassed the customary hearings and calling on Democrats to drop it for the sake of national unity. "Impeaching the president in such a short time frame would be a mistake," said Kevin McCarthy, the House's top Republican. "That doesn't mean the president's free from fault. The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters." Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, accused Democrats of recklessly dividing the country to pursue a political vendetta. "This is about getting the president of the United States," said Jordan. "It's always been about getting the president, no matter what. It's an obsession." Among members of the president's party who voted to impeach him was the third-ranking House Republican Liz Cheney. The Wyoming representative, who is the daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney, said of the Capitol riot that "there has never been a greater betrayal by a president". Source: BBC AH