Former President Donald Trump is facing more legal headwinds than just indictments and court cases in New York, Washington, D.C., and Florida, he is also battling an effort by various groups to bar him from appearing on next year’s presidential ballot in several states which, if successful, would effectively kill his chances to being elected.
The organizations are citing a provision of the 14th Amendment claiming that he took part in an “insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol Building, thereby making him ineligible to seek federal elective office. Trump hasn’t been charged with, much less convicted of, ‘insurrection’ or sedition.
One of the states targeted by the various groups is Michigan, where Trump’s legal team filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to head off the effort there.
The Daily Caller reports:
Former President Donald Trump sued Democratic Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on Monday to prevent her from keeping him off the state’s 2024 election ballot.
The lawsuit, filed in the Michigan Court of Claims, asks the court to issue an injunction barring Benson from removing him from the ballot and to find that she lacks the authority to decide whether or not he is qualified. Michigan is one of many states where a lawsuit has been filed to remove Trump from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars officials who took an oath to the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.
Trump’s speech on and leading up to Jan. 6 was intended “to inspire a protest to contest an election outcome,” which is not “insurrectionary or unlawful in any way,” the lawsuit says.
“Even if the events of January 6, 2021, could constitute an ‘insurrection’ (they do not), President Trump did not ‘engage’ in it,” his lawyers wrote. “‘Engaging’ requires some level of active participation. Inaction is not sufficient.”
That said, Benson wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in September she would not try to keep Trump off the ballot. “Whether Trump is eligible to run for president again is a decision not for secretaries of state but for the courts,” she wrote at the time.
Meanwhile, a trial to remove Trump from the ballot in Colorado began on Monday.
