Trump wants the Supreme Court justices he appointed to treat him 'fair' in his Colorado appeal

• SCOTUS has agreed to take the case determining Trump's eligibility to run for office again.
• Trump expressed hesitation that his appointees to the court will rule against him to appear "fair."

After SCOTUS agreed to hear Trump's appeal of the Colorado court decision that ruled he's ineligible to run for office again on the state's ballot, the former President expressed hesitation over whether the justices he appointed to the highest court of the land would side with him in their upcoming ruling.

"When you are a Republican judge, and you're appointed by, let's say, Trump, they go out of their way to hurt you so that they can show that they have been fair — fair, honorable people," Trump said during an election campaign rally in Iowa on Friday. "It's an amazing difference. I've never seen anything like it."

He added that "radical left Democrats" will vote against him "right from the beginning," but Republican judges "want to go out of their way to be fair and unbiased, and even to a point where they hurt you."

"I guess it's a different wiring system or something," the former President lamented. "But all I want is fair. I fought really hard to get three very, very good people, and they're great people, very smart people. And I just hope that they're going to be fair because, you know, the other side plays the ref like Bobby Knight."

Knight was a college basketball coach nicknamed "the General" who held the record for the most NCAA Division I wins at the time of his retirement. Knight was known for a fiery temperament somewhat at odds with the typical understanding of "playing the ref," in which coaches or athletes compete with the referee's distinctive interpretation style in mind — more aggressively when playing in front of a permissive ref, for example, or being more subtle when duking it out in front of a stickler for the rule book.

The ref could be a justice Trump didn't appoint

During his term as President, Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, solidifying a conservative majority.

Now, that same Supreme Court will soon rule on his eligibility to run for office again, as it has agreed to hear an appeal of a Colorado case which determined that Trump is ineligible to run for or hold public office again based on his actions during the January 6 attack on the Capitol, citing the insurrection clause in the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

While Trump has signaled his worry that his SCOTUS appointees could side with Colorado and determine he's ineligible to hold office to avoid coming across as "political," legal experts say the case isn't clear cut, no matter how the justices typically lean.

"Certainly, the conservative majority on the court is going to be at least initially skeptical, and the liberals of course are going to go in the other direction," former Assistant US Attorney Kevin O'Brien told Business Insider. "But I think some of the more thoughtful conservatives like Roberts are going to give this serious consideration."

O'Brien added that he doesn't believe the justices will be "hung up" on whether Trump has been convicted of any form of insurrection but will focus on issues of federalism and state's rights, which are central to the case.

"I do think they may have concerns about having states interfere with federal elections, having a hodgepodge of rules in different states, and kind of a lack of nationwide uniformity, that sort of thing," O'Brien said.

Since the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling on December 19, Maine's secretary of state has also determined Trump ineligible to appear on that state's primary election ballot. Trump has appealed the Maine decision to a state court, but the SCOTUS decision on the Colorado case will ultimately determine the outcome for both cases.

The Supreme Court on Friday signaled it would expedite its ruling and will hear oral arguments in the case on February 8. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.