Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said that if the US Supreme Court does not restore Donald Trump to the right to participate in the primaries in Colorado and Maine, then the same ban at the local level will be applied to Joe Biden.
"What happened in Colorado and Maine is shameful and undermines our republic. I hope the Supreme Court will overturn this decision, otherwise the secretaries of state will intervene and ensure that the new legal criterion for Donald Trump applies equally to Joe Biden," Ashcroft wrote on his page on the social network X (former Twitter).
He later told the media that he would like to avoid such a scenario, but if the Supreme Court does not rule in favor of Trump, it will be inevitable.
"I am not a supporter of this path. But, if we follow it, [such measures – RT] are inevitable, provided that the Supreme Court does not interfere with this. The rules will apply in the same way. I just hope that these will not be the rules of Colorado and Maine," Ashcroft was quoted as saying by the New York Post.
Earlier, in two US states - Colorado and Maine - local authorities banned Donald Trump from participating in the primaries, which will begin on March 5. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 19, and Maine Secretary of State Shanna Bellows announced the same ban on Dec. 29.
- Donald Trump in court
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Both of these decisions were made on the basis of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, according to which a person who took the oath as a U.S. official and then participated in a rebellion cannot be elected or appointed to public office. This amendment was passed in 1868, after the War of North and South in America.
"I am aware that no state secretary of state has ever revoked a presidential candidate's access to the (primary). — RT) elections under Section 14 of the <>th Amendment to the Constitution. However, I am also aware that no presidential candidate has ever been involved in a rebellion before," Bellows said in a comment on her decision.
Recall that several criminal cases were initiated against Donald Trump at once, one of which is related to an attempt to revise the results of the 2020 election, in which Trump's rival Joe Biden was declared the winner. The US Department of Justice claims that the actions of the ex-president led to the events of January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters occupied the Capitol building in Washington. It is this incident that the Democratic Party calls a rebellion.
At the same time, Donald Trump has not been officially charged with inciting or organizing an insurrection.
The former president and his lawyers have already filed an appeal against the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court, and on January 2, they appealed the ban on admission to the primaries in Maine. Trump's representatives issued a statement stressing that Secretary of State Shanna Bellows does not have the authority to impose such bans.
"Maine's secretary of state exceeded her authority by completely ignoring the Constitution when she decided overnight to remove Trump's name from the ballot, interfere in the election and deprive her state's voters of the right to vote," The Washington Post quoted the billionaire's representatives as saying.
Trump's appeal must be heard by the state Supreme Court by January 17, after which the case can be transferred to the Maine Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court. In turn, the date for appealing the ban on Trump's participation in the primaries in the state of Colorado has already been determined: the US Supreme Court will consider it on February 8.
Dangerous Configurations
Donald Trump's supporters, realizing that the Democrats want to prevent him from taking part in the 2024 elections by all means, have begun to use the methods of their opponents against themselves, Konstantin Blokhin, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in a conversation with RT.
"This is a kind of 'response' on the part of the local authorities of the Republican states that are sympathetic to Trump. Since the Democrats are interfering with him, putting spokes in the wheels and closing the possibility of being elected in this state, the Republicans are now threatening to use their administrative resources against Joe Biden. This is a kind of political boomerang on their part," the political scientist explained.
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At the same time, it is obvious that none of the parties pays any attention to legal norms, Konstantin Blokhin emphasized.
"Obviously, now the issue is not in jurisprudence, but in the political struggle. The 2024 election is crucial for both parties. Each of the political forces sees itself as literally America's last chance. At the same time, there is no candidate in the political field who could be compared in popularity with Trump. The Democrats are aware of this and therefore are doing their best to prevent him from taking part in the elections. And now the Republicans have begun to respond in kind," the expert said.
However, according to Konstantin Blokhin, the more the Democratic establishment puts pressure on Trump, the more popular he becomes in the eyes of ordinary voters and party colleagues who are ready to actively fight opponents.
In turn, Dmitry Evstafiev, Professor at the Media Institute of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, in a conversation with RT, stressed that the current situation, which destabilizes the US political system, was created by the Democrats themselves.
"They had to pull their charges in Colorado and Maine. Such hardened politicians as gathered in the US Democratic Party should have understood that they are not the only ones who can play the administrative game with a ban on participation in the primaries. This game is very politically acute, and it is actually a step towards the destruction of the single political space in the United States. If representatives of the Democratic Party in the states they control can exclude one of the main candidates from the electoral lists, then why can't the Republicans do the same in the states that they control?" the political scientist stated.
However, the exchange of such bans could lead to the split of the country into two parts along political lines, warns Dmitry Yevstafyev.
"In the future, there may be a situation where in some states there will be no Biden on the ballots, in others there will be no Trump. This has never happened before in the United States. In fact, this fixes the split of the country into two parts. Even if this process is stopped now, the precedent for the creation of such asymmetrical political configurations in the country has already been established. And this did not happen even during the Civil War in the United States," the expert explained.
At the same time, the situation is aggravated by the fact that the Democrats are making their decisions on banning Trump from participating in the primaries outside legal norms, since he has not yet been convicted of organizing the rebellion, Dmitry Yevstafiev emphasized.
"Moreover, he has never been charged with direct participation in the rebellion, that is, the use of this amendment turns into pulling an owl on the globe. But in the U.S., no one worries about the legal side of issues anymore — all major decisions are made solely for political reasons. The Democrats are driven solely by the desire to remove Trump from the election at any cost," the analyst added.
All this ultimately leads to the undermining of trust in the very institution of elections, the expert noted.
"In fact, no one believes in the purity of the elections that will take place in 2024. And there is a very high degree of probability that under the current electoral system, presidential elections will be held in the United States for the last time," Yevstafiev concluded.