In what appears to be the Democratic Party’s latest effort to fix the 2024 presidential election, a watchdog group in Washington is trying to disqualify former President Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s ballot, citing the 14th Amendment. And the former president’s lawyers are responding.
Watchdog group based in Washington, Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics (CREW) has filed a lawsuit to remove Trump from the ballot in Colorado.
Looks like the panic is setting in.
Why are they doing this exactly? According to to CREW, they need to remove Trump from the ballot… pic.twitter.com/Urq28tkVVQ
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 7, 2023
The 14th Amendment prohibits individuals who have engaged in insurrection or a rebellion against the U.S. government from holding office. This, the Washington watchdog group argues, and Trump’s participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol protests, should keep the former president off the ballot.
Yet, as many know, Trump did not incite nor directly participate in the Capitol protests of 2021.
Trump’s attorneys argued that the Washington group, claiming that the former president took part in a rebellion by questioning the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, is using a flawed strategy.
“At no time do Petitioners argue that President Trump did anything other than engage in either speaking or refusing to speak for their argument that he engaged in the purported insurrection,” attorney Geoffrey Blue recently wrote in a Colorado court filing, per RedState.
“The Fourteenth Amendment applies to one who ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion,’ not one who only ‘instigated’ any action,” he added.
Legal analyst Jonathan Turley wrote an op-ed for The Hill in August 2023, where he dismissed the falsehood that the 14th Amendment would disbar Trump from running for president. Turley argued that although some leftists like to call Jan. 6 an “insurrection,” half the American public referred to the events on that day as being a protest.
Turley also cited the fact that Trump did not give “aid and comfort” to our adversaries abroad.
“Sulking in the Oval Office does not make Trump a seditionist, despite formal articles of the second impeachment and years of experts insisting that Trump was guilty of incitement and insurrection, Special Counsel Jack Smith notably did not charge him with any such crime,” Turley said.
“The reason is obvious. The evidence and constitutional standards would not have supported a charge of incitement or insurrection.”
This sudden call to ban Trump from appearing on Colorado’s ballot is merely the Democratic Party’s attempt to interfere in the forthcoming presidential election. It is obvious that the former president did not engage in “insurrection” or rebellion against the government, hence, the 14th Amendment does not apply against him.
