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Maine secretary of state disqualifies Trump from 2024 ballot

Maine secretary of state removes Trump from 2024 ballot
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Maine’s Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Thursday disqualified former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot, citing the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung blasted the decision, calling Bellows a “virulent leftist” and “hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat,” in a statement to The Post.

He said the campaign would “quickly file a legal objection in state court to prevent this atrocious decision in Maine from taking effect.”

“I do not reach this conclusion lightly. Democracy is sacred,” Bellows wrote in her 34-page decision on multiple complaints challenging the 77-year-old Trump’s eligibility for the primary ballot in Maine based on his actions leading up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol

“I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection,” she stated, calling the riot at the Capitol “unprecedented and tragic.”

“They were an attack not only upon the Capitol and government officials, but also an attack on the rule of law. The evidence here demonstrates that they occurred at the behest of, 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 the Rosen and Royal Challengers have met their burden … They have provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate the falsity of Mr. Trump’s declaration that he meets the qualifications of the office of the presidency. Therefore, as required … I find that the primary petition of Mr. Trump is invalid,” she ruled. 

Bellows noted that her decision would be suspended until the Maine Superior Court rules on the Trump campaign’s expected appeal. 

The Maine Republican primary election will take place on March 5.

Bellows’ decision comes after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that Trump was ineligible based on the same Fourteenth Amendment grounds.

By contrast, the Michigan Supreme Court opposed disqualifying the ex-president, arguing the state’s secretary of state does not have the legal authority to remove candidates nominated by political parties for a primary.

Unlike in Colorado and Michigan, Maine’s process for ballot eligibility is first deliberated by the secretary of state before courts can get involved.

Lawyers for Trump unsuccessfully sought to disqualify Bellows from ruling on the challenges to Trump’s ballot eligibility, pointing to her past social media posts as proof she “has already concluded that President Trump engaged in insurrection.”  

For instance, on Feb. 13, 2021, Bellows posted on Twitter that the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot was an “insurrection” and “an unlawful attempt to overthrow the results of a free and fair election.”

“One year after the violent insurrection, it’s important to do all we can to safeguard our elections,” she wrote on Jan. 6, 2022.

“The Maine Secretary of State is a former ACLU attorney, a virulent leftist and a hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat who has decided to interfere in the presidential election on behalf of Crooked 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 mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.” AP

“Democrats in blue states are recklessly and un-Constitutionally suspending the civil rights of the 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 force of government institutions to protect their grip on power,” he added. 

The Trump campaign spokesman argued that myriad 14th Amendment challenges to Trump’s candidacy are “bad-faith” and “bogus,” pointing to court rulings in Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Arizona, Florida, Rhode Island and West Virginia. 

“We know both the Constitution and the American people are on our side in this fight,” Cheung said. “President Trump’s dominating campaign has a commanding lead in the polls that has dramatically expanded as Crooked Joe Biden’s presidency continues to fail.”

Two of Trump’s GOP primary rivals immediately came out and criticized the ruling by Maine’s secretary of state.

Republican presidential candidate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. REUTERS

“This is what an actual threat to democracy looks like,” entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy wrote on X. “The system is hellbent on taking this man out, the Constitution be damned.”

He added that he would stand by his prior pledge to “withdraw from any state’s ballot that ultimately removes Trump,” and called on his opponents to do the same.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said “the idea that one bureaucrat in an executive position can simply unilaterally disqualify someone from office – that turns on its head, every notion of constitutional due process that this country has always abided by for over 200 years.”

“It opens up Pandora’s Box,” he argued during an interview with Fox News. “Can you have a Republican secretary of state disqualify Biden from the ballot because he’s let in 8 million people illegally?”

DeSantis added that he doesn’t believe the Maine ruling and other challenges to Trump’s ballot access will hold up in the Supreme Court.

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) called Bellows’ decision a “corrupt act” and an “illegal” example of “desperate radical Democrats weaponizing government against President Trump.”

“The Far Left Democrat Maine Secretary of State just unilaterally removed President Trump off the ballot,” Stefanik said in a statement. “This is election interference, voter suppression, and a blatant attack on democracy. The Supreme Court must overturn this unprecedented and unconstitutional action now.”

The seldom-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 taking over state governments and the federal government.

“The amendment was written to deal with those who engage in an actual rebellion causing hundreds of thousands of deaths,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said earlier this year, calling attempts to bar Trump from ballots citing the insurrection clause “not simply dubious but dangerous.”

On Thursday, Turley said the Maine ruling “shows why the [Supreme] Court needs to rule quickly, clearly, and hopefully unanimously in rejecting this pernicious theory.”