'Legally way off': Ex-federal prosecutor rips Trump’s 'deeply flawed' case against ballot exclusion

Only nine days after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment disqualifies 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump from the state's primary ballot, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows agreed with that reasoning and, on December 28, barred Trump from the ballot in her state. However, Michigan and deep blue California have decided that Trump can remain on their ballots.

Trump's legal team has been aggressively fighting Bellows' decision. In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on January 3, Kimberly Wehle — a law professor, author and former federal prosecutor — tears apart the "deeply flawed" and "legally way off" anti-Bellows arguments that Trump supporters have been using.

The Colorado and Maine decisions, Wehle notes, were made "on the grounds that Trump engaged in an insurrection after having taken an oath to support the Constitution and is accordingly disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment."

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"The main difference between what each state has done is that in Colorado, the decision came from the Colorado Supreme Court, while in Maine the decision was issued by the secretary of state, who is appointed by the state legislature," Wehle explains. "As Charlie Sykes noted yesterday, some commentators have rushed to declare both rulings anti-democratic, as if voters have a 'democratic' right to pick whomever they want for president under our system of laws. They don't: Not only does the Constitution impose age and residency requirements, among others, for anyone seeking the presidency, but each state has its own laws governing ballot eligibility, including feats like securing a minimum number of signatures from registered party members, filing fees and deadlines."

Wehle elaborates, "If a Republican nominee for president in California fails to secure the signatures of 1 percent of that state's registered party members — over 52,000 people — by December 15, for example, that candidate is banned from the presidential ballot. Nobody is howling that it's somehow anti-democratic to impose such hurdles. This complaint only seems to arise when the candidate is Trump."

The former federal prosecutor laments that attacks on Bellows and others from Trump supporters "have reached an ugly level."

"Bellows' home address and cell phone were posted online," Wehle observes. "She received death threats, and was the victim of a 'swatting' incident where a phony 911 call was placed to her home — a terrible foretaste of the lawlessness we might see in the months ahead, as Donald Trump's supporters act in service of his lies and ambition."

READ MORE: Former federal prosecutor: Maine sec'y of state's disqualification of Trump 'a profile in courage'

Kimberly Wehle's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.