'Deeply flawed' MAGA complaints about Trump disqualification shredded by law professor

Former President Donald Trump's supporters are out of their depth when they attack the decisions disqualifying the former president from the primary ballot in Colorado and Maine, University of Baltimore law professor Kim Wehle argued in an article for The Bulwark.

The disqualification stems from Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, also known as the Insurrection Clause.

"Critics of the two rulings cite due process and the lack of a criminal jury verdict — but as I noted yesterday, as a legal matter, these critiques are deeply flawed. In the Colorado case, Trump actually got due process via a multi-day evidentiary hearing — even though the protection of due process only dubiously applies to presidential runs in the first place," wrote Wehle. "The critiques of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows are even more intense than the criticism of the Colorado ruling, since the secretary of state isn’t a court — but they are legally way off, as well," because she followed the process directly laid out in Maine law, and it is reviewable by state courts.

Bellows, continued Wehle, "executed her obligation to ensure that the state’s requirements for getting on the ballot are satisfied. If a 'teenager' tried to run, she notes, she’d go through the identical process, presumably without the cries of outrage that Trump evokes from people across the political spectrum. President Joe Biden won’t be on the New Hampshire primary ballot either, over a dispute within the Democratic party regarding whether New Hampshire’s or South Carolina’s primary will lead this year. No abounding indignation on that one. Crickets."

Moreover, she noted, Trump's legal team doesn't even dispute the factual finding of January 6 being an "insurrection" the participation in which would be covered by the Fourteenth Amendment.

But despite all this, said Wehle, Bellows — like many officials around the country who haven't fallen in line behind MAGA — is receiving mounting threats and harassment.

"A terrible foretaste of the lawlessness we might see in the months ahead, as Donald Trump’s supporters act in service of his lies and ambition," she concluded.