Donald Trump's own words captured on video helped get him disqualified from the 2024 primary ballot in Maine, according to a legal expert.
That state became the second, after Colorado, to remove the former president from its March 5 primary ballot over his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows made her decision after viewing video evidence provided by a bipartisan group of state legislators, reported Newsweek.
"[Bellows] based her ruling on a lot of documents, but also YouTube clips, news reports, things that would never pass the bar in normal court," former federal prosecutor Elie Honig told CNN. "She's not a lawyer, by the way. It's a smartly written decision, clearly consulted with lawyers, but this is an unelected — she's chosen by the state legislature. Chosen, elected by the legislature, but not democratically elected."
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The plaintiffs also showed video evidence of Trump encouraging his supporters to remove protesters — sometimes with violence — from his campaign rallies going back to early 2016, but Bellows agreed with the former president's attorneys that those comments were too old to be relevant to this challenge.
Bellows paused the ruling that was announced Thursday evening while her decision was appealed, and Honig said he expected the U.S. Supreme Court to eventually weigh in.
"I do think the Supreme Court is going to take this case," Honig said. "I think [yesterday's] ruling makes it even more likely."
