Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Thursday disqualified former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 vote, citing the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung criticized the decision, calling Bellows a “virulent leftist” and “hyperpartisan Democrat who supports Biden,” in a statement to The Post.
He said the campaign would “quickly file a legal challenge in state court to prevent this egregious decision in Maine from going into effect.”
“I do not come to this conclusion lightly. “Democracy is sacred,” Bellows wrote in his 34-page decision on multiple complaints questioning Trump, 77,’s eligibility for the Maine primary based on his actions leading up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. at the United States Capitol.
“I am aware that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of access to the polls based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, I am also aware that no presidential candidate has ever participated in an insurrection before,” he stated, calling the Capitol riot “tragic and unprecedented.”
“They were an attack not only on the Capitol and government officials, but also an attack on the rule of law. The evidence here demonstrates that they occurred at the behest and with the knowledge and support of the outgoing president,” Bellows argued.
Trump was disqualified from Maine’s ballot after the secretary of state cited the Constitution’s insurrection clause. REUTERS
“I conclude that Rosen and Royal Challengers have met their burden…They have provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate the falsity of Mr. Trump’s claim that he meets the qualifications for the office of President. Therefore, as necessary… I consider that Mr. Trump’s primary petition is not valid,” he stated.
Bellows said his decision would be put on hold until the Maine Superior Court rules on the Trump campaign’s expected appeal.
Maine’s Republican primary elections will be held on March 5.
Bellows’ decision comes after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that Trump was inelectable based on the same Fourteenth Amendment grounds.
On the contrary, the Michigan Supreme Court opposed disqualifying the former president, arguing that the state’s secretary of state does not have the legal authority to remove candidates nominated by political parties for a primary.
Unlike Colorado and Michigan, Maine’s process for ballot eligibility is first deliberated by the secretary of state before the courts can intervene.
Trump’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to disqualify Bellows from speaking on challenges to Trump’s electoral eligibility, pointing to her past social media posts as evidence that she “has already concluded that President Trump participated in an insurrection.”
For example, on February 13, 2021, Bellows posted on Twitter that the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021 was an “insurrection” and “an illegal attempt to overturn the results of a free and fair election.”
“A year after the violent insurrection, it is important to do everything possible to safeguard our elections,” he said. wrote on January 6, 2022.
“The Secretary of State of Maine is a former ACLU lawyer, a virulent leftist, and a hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat who has decided to interfere in the presidential election on behalf of corrupt Joe Biden,” Cheung told The Post. “We are witnessing, in real time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows wrote: “I am aware that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, I am also aware that no presidential candidate has ever participated in an insurrection before.” AP
“Democrats in Democratic states are recklessly and unconstitutionally suspending the civil rights of American voters by attempting to summarily remove President Trump’s name from the ballot. Make no mistake: These partisan election interference efforts are a hostile assault on American democracy. “Biden and the Democrats simply do not trust the American voter in a free and fair election and are now relying on the strength of government institutions to protect their hold on power,” he added.
The Trump campaign spokesman argued that the countless 14th Amendment challenges to Trump’s candidacy are “bad faith” and “false,” pointing to court rulings in Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Arizona, Florida, Rhode Island and Virginia Western.
“We know that both the Constitution and the American people are on our side in this fight,” Cheung said. “President Trump’s dominant campaign has a commanding lead in the polls that has widened dramatically as corrupt Joe Biden’s presidency continues to fail.”
Two of Trump’s rivals in the Republican primaries immediately came out to criticize the Maine secretary of state’s ruling.
Republican presidential candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. REUTERS
“This is what current “He seems like a threat to democracy,” businessman Vivek Ramaswamy wrote in X. “The system is hell-bent on eliminating this man, the Constitution be damned.”
He added that he would keep his earlier promise to “withdraw from any state vote that ultimately removes Trump” and called on his opponents to do the same.
Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said that “the idea that a bureaucrat in an executive position can simply unilaterally disqualify someone from office upends every notion of constitutional due process that this country has always respected for more than 200 years.”
“It opens Pandora’s box,” he argued during an interview with Fox News. “Can a Republican Secretary of State disqualify Biden from the election because he has let in 8 million people illegally?”
DeSantis added that he does not believe the Maine ruling and other challenges to Trump’s access to the ballots will hold up in the Supreme Court.
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) called Bellows’ decision a “corrupt act” and an “illegal” example of “desperate radical Democrats using the government as a weapon against the President Trump.”
“Maine’s far-left Democratic Secretary of State just unilaterally removed President Trump from the ballot,” Stefanik said in a statement. “This is election interference, voter suppression and a blatant attack on democracy. “The Supreme Court must now overturn this unprecedented and unconstitutional action.”
The rarely used Disqualification Clause was included in the post-Civil War 14th Amendment as a means to prevent former Confederate officials from becoming elected officials and assuming control of state and federal governments.
“The amendment was written to address those participating in an actual rebellion that causes hundreds of thousands of deaths,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said earlier this year, calling attempts to exclude Trump of the ballots citing the insurrection clause “not merely doubtful.” but dangerous.”
On Thursday, Turley said the Maine ruling “shows why the [Supreme] “The court must rule quickly, clearly, and hopefully unanimously to reject this pernicious theory.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn