CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig claims that President Trump has two arguments that could make his appearance on the ballots go away.
The Trump team is appealing the decision by Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows that took Trump’s name off the ballot in Maine.
Republicans in Colorado are doing the same thing. The Supreme court will throw both bans out as unconstitutional. Both states claim they are invoking the 14th Amendment. But, Trump has never been convicted or even charged with this crime.
Honig laid out his argument:
“So if we’re talking about the 14th Amendment disqualification case, what Donald Trump does in his brief that he submitted yesterday challenging the Maine disqualification is he gives himself a lot of different ways to win. Let me sort of lay out how he structures his argument.
First he says, ‘Well, I did not engage in insurrection.’ It’s just one line but I think he feels duty-bound to deny it. But then really what he does is focus on the procedural side. And I think that’s where this is going to be decided,” Honig explained.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL“First he says it’s up to Congress, not the states, to tell us how the 14th Amendment works. Congress has not done that other than passing the criminal law, hence the states are out of business. But then he says, ‘Well, even if it is up to the states, Maine did not follow its own procedures.
The secretary of state was biased against me, etc. Well, even if they did properly follow their own procedures, that didn’t give me enough due process. They had this one-day hearing, there was only one witness, it was a law professor. It doesn’t comport even with minimum with due process.’
And then he says, ‘Even if all those other arguments fail, the president does not qualify as an officer of the United States under the Constitution.’ … But what Trump’s doing is giving himself four or five different ways to win. Lawyers like to do that.”
“I think [Trump] is looking for an argument that’s going to take this out of the state’s hands altogether, which is really one of two arguments. One is it’s up to Congress and in their absence to act, states, you’re out of business. And by the way, if the U.S. Supreme Court finds that, all these claims go away,” Honig said. “And then the second one I think is that the president does not count as an officer argument. I’m not compelled by that myself if I were the judge … But it has gotten some traction and again, it’s a way for the Supreme Court to dispose of all of these cases in one shot.”
Trump’s legal team argued in their Maine appeal that Trump was not provided due process because he has never been charged with insurrection.
With all of the ridiculous charges being thrown at President Trump, they would have charged him with insurrection, which leads me to believe that not even the prosecutors believe Trump led an insurrection. They would have charged him with insurrection if they thought there was even a remote chance of conviction.
