10
Loading video...
By Katherine Fung
Senior Writer
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Another 14th Amendment lawsuit has been filed against former President Donald Trump, challenging his candidacy on the 2024 ballot.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), a Washington D.C.-based watchdog group, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in Colorado. The lawsuit, filed on behalf a handful of voters from the state, seeks to bar Trump from running for the White House under section 3 of the 14th Amendment, otherwise known as the "disqualification clause."
The clause prohibits individuals who have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the U.S. from holding federal or state office. In recent weeks, that section of the Constitution has been the crux of legal debate over whether Trump is allowed to run for the presidency due to his alleged role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Read More on Politics
...
A lawsuit citing the 14th Amendment was dismissed in Florida last week, while another suit brought by a long-shot Republican presidential candidate is expected to appear before the Supreme Court later this month.
"On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump stood before the nation and took an oath to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.' After losing the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump violated that oath by recruiting, inciting and encouraging a violent mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a futile attempt to remain in office," CREW said in a press release.
The group said it brought the case in Colorado because of the state's laws, calendar and the plaintiffs and witnesses they were able to find to bring their lawsuit. However, CREW also noted it wouldn't be the last venue to see such a challenge.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said: "Joe Biden, Democrats, and Never Trumpers are scared to death because they see polls showing President Trump winning in the general election.
"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 D.C. There is no legal basis for this effort except in the minds of those who are pushing it."
Newsweek reached out to Trump via email for comment.
Trump has widely criticized the use of the 14th Amendment to argue against the validity of his candidacy, likening it to "election interference."
"It is just another 'trick' being used by the Radical Left Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, to again steal an Election that their candidate, the WORST, MOST INCOMPETENT, & MOST CORRUPT President in U.S. history, is incapable of winning in a Free and Fair Election," the former president wrote on Truth Social on Monday.
He added. "Almost all legal scholars have voiced opinions that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis or standing relative to the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election."
CREW President Noah Bookbinder said the organization wasn't bringing the case to "make a point," but argued that it was critical to do so in order to defend U.S. democracy.
"While it is unprecedented to bring this type of case against a former president, January 6 was an unprecedented attack that is exactly the kind of event the framers of the 14th Amendment wanted to build protections in case of," Bookbinder said. "You don't break the glass unless there's an emergency."
CREW filed another case under the 14th Amendment last year to remove Couy Griffin from his office as a county commissioner in New Mexico. Griffin, who founded Cowboys for Trump, was found guilty of trespassing on the Capitol grounds on January 6 and sentenced to 14 days in prison, a $3,000 fine, 60 days of community service and a year of supervised release in June 2022.
The case against Griffin was the only successful case to be brought under the disqualifying clause since 1869, according to CREW. The group said that case would create precedent to argue that the events on the Capitol that day classify as an insurrection.
"The judge in that case determined January 6 was an insurrection under the Constitution and that someone who helped to incite it—even if not personally violent—had engaged in insurrection and was disqualified from office," the Wednesday press release read.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines