'Trump chose to light a match': Maine Secretary of State defends ballot removal decision

Maine's Secretary of State is making Trump pay for igniting an insurrection.

Secretary of State Shenna Bellows appeared on CNN to set the record straight shortly after denying the 45th president from appearing on the 2024 GOP primary ballot.

She said: "The weight of the evidence brought forward under Maine law... made it clear that Mr. Trump was aware of the tinder he laid in a multi-month effort to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 election and then in an unprecedented and tragic series of events chose to light a match."

Bellows claims she was fulfilling her role to follow the law and based her decision on the Civil War-era Section 3 of the 14th Amendment in the Constitution that disqualifies those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.

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"We're required to hold a hearing and then when we looked at the weight of evidence, it became clear that January 6th was an attack not only on the Capitol, on government officials, but also an attack on the rule of law, that it was an insurrection, and that the U.S. Constitution does not tolerate an assault on our government on the foundations of our government."

She continued:

"And that Maine election law and the Constitution required indeed obligated me to act."

She later confirmed that once all is contested and affirmed or denied, that the Supreme Court will ultimately weigh in.

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign came forward to declare that they would be appealing the decision through the state's courts.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung labeled Bellows as a “virulent leftist” and “hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat,” in a statement to The New York Post and said Trump would “quickly file a legal objection in state court to prevent this atrocious decision in Maine from taking effect.”

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