Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump takes the stage for a marketing campaign rally in Derry, New Hampshire, October 23, 2023.
Amanda Sabga | Reuters
Attorneys for former President Donald Trump have filed a lawsuit searching for to forestall Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson from refusing to put him on the poll for her state’s 2024 presidential main and basic elections.
The swimsuit, filed Monday in the Michigan Court of Claims, asks a courtroom to declare that Benson lacks authority to determine whether or not Trump might be disqualified underneath an interpretation of the Constitution that has spurred lawsuits in multiple states. Trump’s attorneys additionally search an injunction barring Benson from refusing to place Trump on the poll in Michigan.
The lawsuit comes sooner or later after a state courtroom in Denver, Colorado, started listening to arguments in a separate lawsuit searching for to keep Trump off that state’s poll. Similar lawsuits have been filed in New Hampshire, Arizona and Minnesota.
Benson, a Democrat, has already said she is not going to strive to keep Trump off the poll, arguing that it isn’t up to her to decide his eligibility.
But the lawsuit contends that Benson is “creating uncertainty” by not responding to a letter from the Trump marketing campaign urging her to affirm that Trump will probably be on the poll.
The lawsuit additionally notes that Benson has been sued in a separate authorized actions to strive to forestall her from together with Trump on her listing of candidates.
Michigan is considered one of a number of states the place activists and authorized teams have filed lawsuits arguing that Trump needs to be disqualified from working for workplace due to his position in fomenting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol.
These lawsuits usually cite Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which states that nobody can maintain workplace who has beforehand taken an oath to assist the Constitution after which “engaged in riot or revolt in opposition to the identical.”
Trump’s swimsuit argues that this provision shouldn’t be “self-executing,” and earlier than it may be carried out, Congress should specify how it’s to be enforced. Since nobody is working to authorize that laws, neither Benson nor the courtroom can disqualify Trump underneath Section 3.
Trump’s attorneys additionally argue that Section 3 doesn’t apply to him, as a result of the president shouldn’t be an “officer of the United States.”
Additionally, the attorneys stated that the occasions of Jan. 6 weren’t an riot — and even when they had been, Trump didn’t “interact” in it.
“Inaction shouldn’t be adequate,” they argued.