Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday shared a video haranguing efforts to have him barred from state ballots for attempting to subvert the 2020 election process.
Trump took to his Truth Social platform to post a video claiming that cases seeking to keep his name off state ballots are "illegal."
"They Are Trying to ILLEGALLY Remove My Name From Your Ballot," the caption said on the video, in which he argues that a "fake trial is currently taking place to try and illegally remove my name from the ballot."
"I often say that 2024 is the most important election in American history," he added, stating that, if he loses, the 2024 election might be "the last election we ever have."
"Our country will not survive," he continued. "If Crooked Joe and the Democrats get away with removing my name from the ballot, then there will never be a free election in America again. We will have become a dictatorship where your president is chosen for you."
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump and his legal team filed a lawsuit against top Michigan election official, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, even though Benson already penned a September opinion piece for the Washington Post arguing that it was not up to her nor legislators to remove Trump from ballots.
"The appropriate forum for deciding whether a candidate qualifies to serve in office under the Constitution is the courts — and, in a case with national implications such as this one, the Supreme Court," Benson wrote. "Though it would be best for the country if that resolution came soon, it’s not a given that the court will pronounce on it before the 2024 primary season ends."
"In 2020, democracy prevailed against a historic effort to undermine it because people of integrity, on both sides of the aisle and in all three branches of government, enforced the guardrails and laws," she continued. "Not only state and local election officials but also lawmakers, judges, poll workers and attorneys worked to make sure that every vote was counted and democracy prevailed. Together we ensured the accurate vote totals were certified in each state, the correct elector certificates were submitted to the National Archives, and the transfer of power occurred in accordance with the law and the Constitution."
"We will succeed again if the courts continue to serve as the proper forum for determining legal issues such as the one now before us — and if secretaries of state remain focused on their role as champions, and guardians, of the democratic process."
Despite Benson confirming her separation from the ballot case, Trump's lawsuit alleges that Benson is “creating uncertainty” by not responding to a letter from his campaign imploring her to confirm that he will be on Michigan's ballot. Trump's attorneys in the suit, filed in the Michigan Court of Claims, seek to prohibit Benson from leaving Trump off the state's ballot and urge a court to deem Benson unfit to determine whether Trump can be ousted.
A trial opened at a state court in Denver, Colorado on Monday, after a group of Colorado voters filed a suit in September asserting that that Trump is ineligible to hold office again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution, without a waiver from Congress. Similar lawsuits have cropped up in New Hampshire, Arizona, and Minnesota, per CNBC.
Some Democrats argue that the section barring insurrectionists from the ballot is self-executing.
"If someone showed up trying to run for president at 19 years old, their answer wouldn't be, well let's let the voters decide. They would say let's consult the Constitution," Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who served as an impeachment manager in Trump's second impeachment, told MSNBC.
Trump's attorneys have maintained that the ineligibility underpinning these lawsuits does not apply to the office of the president, a claim that Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe called an "absurd argument."
"It is clear that Section 3 by itself says that anyone who 'engages in an insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution of the United States' — that's the phrase, not just against the government, but against the Constitution of the United States — is not entitled to another bite at that apple. Now, Donald Trump says that might apply to a county commissioner in New Mexico, but it doesn't apply to him, because it doesn't apply to the president. That is an absurd argument," Tribe said.
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Tribe noted that in Trump's Michigan filing "he calls himself 'President Trump' 35 times — he seems to think that he won the election, but I have news for him. The Constitution says that you serve for only four years. And if you lose the Electoral College, that's the end of it."
"He argues, 'I never really took the kind of oath that Section 3 talks about,'" Tribe continued. "It talks about an oath to support the Constitution. 'I didn't take that oath. I took the oath that the president takes.' It's an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. Now, that's how ridiculous the arguments get. The legal arguments are clear. But the political argument is not so clear. A lot of people say even though Congressman Raskin's examples are perfect, they wouldn't apply it to a 30-year-old or to someone not a natural-born citizen, but they say let the people decide, even if someone is not eligible. That's not the way that people who fought the Civil War decided we needed to handle it. They decided that you needed to disqualify anyone who basically is a traitor to the Constitution. That kind of person is dangerous. Dangerous as a person who might attempt to seize power and then never let go."
"That's the history of autocracies around the world. Somebody manages to make it into office, and then they decide they're going to stay. That's the danger against which this language is designed to protect us all."
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Tribe later tweeted that it is "an error" to focus on January 6, for which Trump denies responsibility.
"It’s what he ADMITS — ATTEMPTING TO STAY IN POWER AFTER OFFICIALLY LOSING THE ELECTION— that DEFINES 'insurrection against the Constitution of the United States,'" he wrote.
J. Michael Luttig, a longtime prominent conservative judge who advised former Vice President Mike Pence ahead of January 6, argued that Tribe is "absolutely right."
"The events of January 6 are the critical final phases of the former president's plan to remain in power — in particular the interference with, and obstruction of, the official proceeding of the Joint Session to count the electoral votes," he wrote. "But it is the overall plan to overturn the election and remain in power in violation of the Executive Vesting Clause that, itself, disqualifies the former president from future office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. For, it is that plan and attempt to remain in office notwithstanding that he had lost the election that constitutes an 'insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution of the United States.'"
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