Trump braces for Supreme Court hearing on whether he can stay on 2024 ballots: Live

The former president is not expected to appear at the Supreme Court today for oral arguments in the case challenging his presidential primary ballot eligibility in Colorado, according to CNN.

Despite Trump using his recent trials and court proceedings as media coverage to promote his 2024 presidential campaign, the arguments in Trump v Anderson will apparently not serve as such.

Instead, he will stay at his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, before heading to Nevada later for the Republican caucus, which he is expected to win at a canter, picking up another 26 delegates.

Did Donald Trump “engage” in insurrection? And if he did, can he be kicked off the presidential ballot? Or should that decision be left up to Congress?

These are the major constitutional questions surrounding Trump’s presidential campaign, including whether he is immune from prosecution for crimes connected to the January 6 attack and if his name can be removed from ballots because of them, that the US Supreme Court could soon settle.

On Thursday, the nation’s highest court will consider whether Colorado election officials can remove Trump from the state’s ballots in 2024, after the state’s top court disqualified him from the presidency under the US Constitution’s “insurrection” clause.

Alex Woodward looks at what will be argued today before the nation’s highest court.

Donald Trump’s legal team replies to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s argument that her conduct does not warrant disqualification from the sprawling Georgia election interference racketeering case she brought against the former president and his 14 co-defendants.

The Trump team claims that Ms Willis’s “extrajudicial racial comments” during a speech at a historically Black church created an “appearance of impropriety”.

Here’s our coverage of the speech:

Steve Sadow, one of Mr Trump’s attorneys, writes that he “can only hope” that the district attorney will be required to explain her comments “in testimony under oath” when she, special prosecutor Nathan Wade — with whom she has admitted a relationship — and others in her office, testify in a 15 February hearing before Judge Scott McAfee.

Here’s Alex Woodward reporting on Ms Willis’s response:

In a new filing, lawyers for Donald Trump said that they plan to file multiple motions to get the criminal charges in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case against the former president dismissed, NBC News reports.

“Defendants currently plan to file on February 22, at minimum, a series of motions to dismiss the Superseding Indictment and certain of the charges therein,” Todd Blanche and Christopher Kise wrote in the newly filed motion, which seeks to extend certain deadlines in the case.

The superseding indictment in the case alleges Mr Trump was involved in a scheme to delete security video at his Palm Beach home and private club.

They added that they are “still evaluating potential motions” which could relate to presidential immunity, the Presidential Records Act, their client’s security clearances, and “selective and vindictive prosecution”.

Both sides — the defence and Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team have until 22 February to file pretrial motions in the case.

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday taunted Donald Trump after a federal appeals court ruled he does not have “immunity” from prosecution for crimes committed while he was in office.

Martha McHardy reports on what he said:

In a post on his social network Truth Social on Tuesday, Mr Trump described the company as “a great American brand that deserves a second chance”.

He further claimed that he is compiling a list of “woke companies”, and that Anheuser-Busch – which donated nearly $1.8m to Republicans in the 2022 elections – was not among them.

Io Dodds reports on the new Trump stance toward the company:

Talking to Republican voters, the network found the following responses to the idea that there was something nefarious relating to the couple’s relationship and the 2024 election:

“To be honest and blunt, I think that’s crazy. It’s absolutely crazy,” said Nic Heimsoth, a two-time Trump voter from Kansas City, Missouri.

“The Democrats will use fair means and foul to win, but that’s nonsense,” [Cynthia Yockey, 70, is a two-time Trump voter] said of the conspiracy theory.

“Democrats’ record of hoaxes is pretty long,” she added. “It’s been a steady stream of manipulations, so it becomes easy to start to use that filter to see everything. I would love for Republicans to chill so that we start working with the real hoaxes.

“Everyone’s trying to find some political vantage to everything,” Craig Gingrich, 75, a substitute teacher from Cedar Falls, Iowa, said of Swift and Kelce’s relationship. “I don’t buy into it, and I don’t think a lot of my conservative friends do, either.”

Read more of the reactions here.

And here’s our reporting on the bizarre theories floating around MAGA World:

The former UN ambassador and two-term governor of South Carolina did not campaign in the state, instead focusing on her home state which votes next.

She ran against “none of these candidates” and some notable names that had already dropped out of the race.

Here’s what the former president had to say: