On Wednesday, a liberal group in Colorado filed a lawsuit claiming that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to run for president in an unlikely attempt to remove him from the state’s primary ballot.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington claim that Trump is subject to the “Disqualifications Clause” of the 14th Amendment in their lawsuit. The clause prohibits anyone who has supported an “insurrection” against the United States from standing for president.
Opponents of Trump nationwide have used the same argument in unsuccessful efforts to remove him from the ballot in other states.
The clause prohibits those who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States or assisted those who have from holding high office.
The Trump team has declared that there is “no legal basis” to use the 14th Amendment to ban Trump from appearing on the presidential ballot in 2024, accusing those promoting the endeavor of using “lawfare” to deny voters choices.
“Joe Biden, Democrats, and Never Trumpers are terrified because polls show President Trump winning the general election,” a Trump campaign official said of the endeavor on Tuesday.
“The people who are pursuing this absurd conspiracy theory and political attack on President Trump are stretching the law beyond recognition, much like the political prosecutors in New York, Georgia, and Washington, D.C.,” the spokesperson added. “This effort has no legal basis except in the minds of those who are pushing it.” This is nothing more than an apparent[ attempt by America’s foes to fabricate excuses and use lawfare to prevent Americans from electing their next president.”
Some legal experts have also claimed that Trump cannot be sued under the provision.
According to Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, there are “good faith arguments in favor of this claim,” yet the theory is “not simply dubious but dangerous.”
“The amendment was written to deal with those who engage in actual rebellion, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths,” Turley explained. “Advocates would broaden the definition of ‘insurgency or rebellion’ to include unsubstantiated claims and challenges involving election fraud.”