With the White House in the background, then-President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
Another attempt to remove Donald Trump from the presidential ballot on allegations that he fomented and plotted an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, has cropped up, this time in the form of a sprawling lawsuit from an organization in Minnesota representing voters, the state’s secretary and a onetime Minnesota Supreme Court justice.
The 84-page lawsuit was filed Tuesday by an organization known as Free Speech for the People. It contends that Trump is disqualified under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution from holding office due to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election from November of that year through Jan. 6, 2021, when he urged supporters gathered in Washington, D.C., to “take back” the country.
A steady drumbeat of these complaints is now building: a similar complaint was filed in Colorado by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, last week.
In the Minnesota complaint, the group points to an array of examples girding the plaintiffs’ request. Trump knew many of his supporters were armed, for example, but nonetheless continued to egg them on during his speech at the Ellipse and then directed them toward the U.S. Capitol Building in an effort to stop electoral proceedings unfolding there, the lawsuit notes.
He also failed to call down the mob for 187 minutes as he reportedly sat inside the White House and watched the violence explode while then-Vice President Mike Pence was forced into hiding and lawmakers and staffers were barricaded in chambers or forced to flee as rioters carrying pro-Trump banners — among a coterie of a weapons both makeshift and not — ground the certification to a halt.
The Constitution states that no person shall hold any office “who having previously taken an oath … engaged in the insurrection or rebellion against the same or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
And this, according to Free Speech for the People, is precisely what Trump did.
He never personally needed to commit an act of violence himself to have engaged in an insurrection, and he doesn’t need to have been convicted of anything to be disqualified on these grounds, the group points out. His sowing of disinformation and solicitation of officials to do his illicit bidding was sufficient to his scheme and went hand in hand, the lawsuit describes, with pleas to individuals like Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican Party, and others, when asking for help to recruit slates of bogus electors to support his ersatz claim to victory in states where President Joe Biden had already won.
From then-Attorney General Bill Barr to members of his own legal team and campaign advisers, Trump, the petitioners allege, understood that his claims of election fraud were meritless. As one campaign adviser wrote in an email three weeks before the Capitol came under attack: “When our research and campaign legal team can’t back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we’re 0-32 on our cases. I’ll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.”
“Trump’s relentless false claims about election fraud and his public pressure and condemnation of election officials resulted in threats of violence against election officials around the country,” Attorney Charles Nauen wrote in the complaint. “Trump knew about the threats of violence that he was provoking and, in the face of pleas from public officials to denounce the violence, instead further encouraged it with inflammatory tweets.”
Some of those claims were heralded by extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and their members who stormed the Capitol. The former leaders of both organizations and a slew of their foot soldiers and chapter leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy and obstruction charges earlier this year.
Proud Boy leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio received a sentence of 22 years earlier this month and Rhodes received 18 in May.
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Amira Mattar, counsel at Free Speech for the People, told Law&Crime in a phone interview Wednesday that these cases offer something important for the courts to consider: those who were inspired to come to the Capitol through Trump’s encouragement “planned to overthrow the government throw violent means.”
“Elements of seditious conspiracy are basically the same disqualification elements and many of these court cases have blamed Trump for facilitating what happened at the Capitol that day. Many of the defendants acknowledged they were following Trump’s orders,” Mattar said.
All of these cases paint a larger picture of who was involved and who was in the lead, she added.
The petitioners in Colorado with CREW are Republican and independent voters and their allegations are similar to those claims made in the Free Speech for the People claim, a group that is more left or progressive-leaning.
Individuals are also trying to block Trump from the ballot, with one such lawsuit filed in a federal court in Florida by two attorneys this August. A judge dismissed the case after a week, however, concluding that the plaintiffs didn’t have standing. The judge handling that case, U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg, found that the attorneys lacked standing because the injuries they alleged to have incurred by the events of Jan. 6 had already expired. And, the Barack Obama-appointed judge noted, the injuries weren’t particular to them as individuals.
Importantly, however, the federal judge did not rule on the constitutionality argument and whether Trump was disqualified because of his conduct on Jan. 6.
Mattar told Law&Crime the case in Minnesota is different because it’s housed in state court and is being brought to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The plaintiffs are using state election laws to bolster their standing because Trump’s alleged plotting was a direct injury to those voters.
“We are hopeful this will move fast and for the sake of all voters, like Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said, he hopes the courts will address this immediately,” she said.
Matter said she expects the court to address a briefing schedule this week.
As momentum builds in the courts to strike Trump from the presidential ballot, he continues to face indictments on four fronts involving hush money payments, retention of classified documents and election interference charges.
The twice–impeached former president has denied any wrongdoing and his campaign for the coming election year has decried lawsuits like those filed this month across various states as proof of a broader “conspiracy” to stop his return to the White House.
Campaign spokesman Steven Chung told ABC News on Sept. 1 there was “no legal basis for this effort” to remove Trump from the ballots.
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