Lawyers for former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to counter an attempt to bar him from the 2024 presidential ballot in Michigan.
The lawsuit targets Michigan Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and looks to ensure that Benson will not keep Trump off the ballot in the 2024 presidential primary or general election as activists try to remove Trump’s name under the 14th Amendment.
“Despite President Trump’s tremendous popularity, there are people who want to deny Michigan voters the opportunity to express their choice by voting for him. To accomplish this, they want the Secretary of State to violate her duties and exercise powers she does not have to keep President Trump’s name off of the ballot. And they want to use this Court as a vehicle to do it,” the lawsuit said.
Trump’s legal team is looking for a declarative ruling that Benson has no authority to remove him from the ballot and that the courts issue an injunction blocking her from doing so.
“There is an actual controversy, the outcome of which will determine how President Trump and his campaign allocate their resources both in Michigan and around the country,” the lawsuit said.
Trump has already reached out to Benson asking if he would be removed from the ballot but has said that he has not received a response.
“The Secretary’s failure to respond is creating uncertainty, which impacts how President Trump will allocate resources,” Trump’s lawyers said. “This uncertainty is compounded by the fact that Secretary Benson is an active member of the opposing major political party and has publicly weighed in with her negative views of President Trump.”
The effort to remove Trump from the ballot in Michigan is headed up by the leftist nonprofit Free Speech for Free Peoples, a group that has filed a similar complaint in Minnesota. The argument hinges on a claim that Trump is ineligible because of section three of the 14th Amendment which bars anyone from running for office who had previously taken an oath of office, then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
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A similar effort has been begun in Colorado, where the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington hopes to disqualify Trump from the ballot in The Centennial State.
The former president, who is currently the leading GOP presidential candidate, has said that the efforts are election interference.
“This is like a banana republic,” Trump told radio host Dan Bongino. “And what they’re doing is, it’s called election interference. … Now the 14th Amendment is just a continuation of that. It’s nonsense.”