Former Attorney General Bill Barr said efforts to kick former President Trump from the primary ballot are “doomed to legal failure.” in an editorial For Tuesday's Free Press.
“The actions of Colorado and Maine, and other states to follow, are doomed to legal failure,” Barr said, noting that Trump was recently excluded from primary ballots in Maine and Colorado. “It not only encourages and empowers the former president,” he said. Under the 14th Amendment.
Barr also said the efforts “undermine the credibility of legitimate efforts to hold President Trump accountable and cement in the minds of many Americans an image of a powerless elite trying to take advantage of the system.” Ta.
Maine Secretary of State Shena Bellows (D) concluded last week that the former president should be removed from the state's ballot for his actions through January 6, 2021.
In early December, the Colorado Supreme Court also ruled in a 4-3 decision that Trump should be removed from the ballot.
The dispute between the two states is expected to end up in the hands of the Supreme Court.
In his op-ed, Barr argued that states do not have the legal authority to “use their own extraordinary procedures to enforce the disqualification clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by determining that individuals participated in the insurrection.”
He said if the Justice Department determines that President Trump was involved in the riot, “that would be a different story.” But that's not the case. ”
Republicans have widely condemned the decisions in Colorado and Maine, and some Republican officials, such as Barr, have also criticized President Trump's actions. Democrats are even more divided on this issue.
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