Two advocacy groups have written to officials in several states urging them to bar Donald Trump from running as a presidential candidate for allegedly inciting an insurrection.
The Free Speech For People (FSFP) and Mi Familia Vota Education Fund groups have written letters to secretaries of state and election officials in California, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania demanding that they "carry out their responsibility" by barring Trump from being on next year's ballot for allegedly violating the 14th Amendment due to his actions around the January 6 attack.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, introduced in the wake of the Civil War, states that a person who "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" after taking a congressional oath should be prevented from running for office again.
The letters were sent as Trump is the overwhelming favorite to clinch the GOP presidential primary next year. The former president is also under federal investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith's office over his actions in and around the January 6 attack as well as his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump denies all wrongdoing in connection to the Capitol riot, and still falsely claims the last election was "rigged" against him. Trump's office has been contacted via email for comment.
"The evidence is overwhelming that Donald Trump incited and mobilized the insurrection on January 6, 2021 at our nation's Capitol," Alexandra Flores-Quilty, campaign director for FSFP, said in a statement. "The U.S. Constitution is clear that anyone who takes an oath of office and then engages in insurrection is forever barred from holding public office again. Election officials must carry out their duty, follow this constitutional mandate, and bar Trump from the ballot."
This is not the first time that Trump has faced calls to be barred from running for office for allegedly violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
In late 2022, the progressive campaign group MoveOn set up an online petition demanding Trump be disqualified from running for public office over allegations the former president and his allies "planned, promoted, and paid for a criminal conspiracy that became the January 6 insurrection." The petition has since attracted more than 194,000 signatures.
The 14th Amendment has also been cited in legal challenges from groups hoping to disbar other Republican figures from office over the January 6 attack, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and former North Carolina Representative Madison Cawthorn.
In May 2022, a Georgia judge rejected the effort to disqualify Greene for running for office again as there was "insufficient" evidence to suggest she supported an insurrection. Cawthorn left office in January 2023 after he lost his GOP primary to Chuck Edwards last May.
The FSFP and the Mi Familia Vota Education Fund had previously written a letter to Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar in April urging him to prevent Trump from running for office after the former president allegedly "incited and facilitated" an insurrection against the United States. Both groups have been trying to get Trump barred over the insurrection claims since June 2021.
Irving Zavaleta, Mi Familia Vota national programs manager, said: "Secretaries of State and state election officials are well within their authority to bar former President Donald Trump from the ballot. We all know that Donald Trump incited an insurrection to stop the certification of the 2020 election.
"Under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, anyone who has taken the oath of office to defend the Constitution and then engages in an insurrection is disqualified from holding future public office. Trump is disqualified, and we strongly urge election officials to bar him from the ballot."
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Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
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