The ongoing effort to marginalize former President Donald Trump, the subject of multiple criminal investigations, has reached the point of Trump being removed from GOP primary ballots in individual states.
Colorado tested the water first with its state supreme court ruling, a 4-3 decision that cited the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause. After that ruling, Maine jumped on board when Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, made the call all by her lonesome.
Bellows also cited the insurrection clause in her decision.
Both cases are pending a U.S. Supreme Court decision where some scholars predict the right-leaning court will rule against the states and on behalf of Trump.
In Colorado, Trump will be included on the ballot unless the Supreme Court declines to hear the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado court’s ruling before Friday, the deadline for ballot certification in that state.
Jeff Clark, a senior fellow and director of litigation for the Center for Renewing America, said on the "Washington Watch" program Tuesday that other states will follow the lead of Maine and Colorado.
“I think that this is all a plan that was plotted out long ago," Clark said, citing the second impeachment against Trump when he out of office.
"That sole article of impeachment was that he had engaged in an insurrection or given aid or comfort to it. That failed," Clark told show host Tony Perkins. "They brought the charge, the House approved it without any hearings, but it failed in the trial in the Senate."
Trump was already out of office when he was impeached for the second time on Jan. 13, 2021. Ten U.S. House Republicans joined all Democrats to vote in favor of impeachment creating two firsts: the most "yes" votes ever from a president’s own party and the first time the majority party voted unanimously for impeachment.
The only article of impeachment was Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol. He was acquitted in his Senate trial on Feb. 13.
State-level attacks another 'bite at the apple'
Clark said the current plan to attack Trump at the state level is at least three years in the making.
“It’s a second, third or fourth bite at the apple," Clark observed. "We’re just seeing it unfold, and we’re seeing ridiculous people like Shenna Bellows, who’s not a lawyer, drop a legal opinion that was clearly lawyered. That’s part of the plan too.”
The Daily Caller reported last Saturday that The Heritage Foundation, through it’s Oversight Project, is preparing a lawsuit against Bellows’ office as part of a broader investigation into efforts to have Trump removed from Republican primary ballots.
Heritage Oversight Project director Mike Howell called Bellows’ actions “Jim Crow politics.”
“Seeing this trend across the country leads me to believe that Bellows is not acting alone, but instead part of a potentially criminal conspiracy,” Howell said.
“I think the (Maine) legislature should try to do the same through oversight,” Clark added.
Clark says Colorado and Maine have opened a Pandora’s Box in which either side now has precedent to aim to oust the other side’s candidate through America’s courts.
“At some point turnabout has to be fair play," Clark said. "The Democrats have unleashed all of this lawfare. They think that they're not going to be any consequences to be paid for that because they think that they're specially privileged."
Congressional efforts to push back on this have been weak, Clark said. He believes reeling in the Democrats’ plan will require actions such as The Heritage Foundation is currently undertaking.
Conservative nonprofit groups also have smart lawyers and need to meet Democrats on the battlefield they’ve chosen.
He admits, however, that Democrats have a head start.
“We need our own set of non-governmental organizations, public interest groups. We have some, but we just don't have anything like the level of energy, the level of funding and the number of groups that they have on the Left,” Clark said.
“We need our billionaires, those who are men of faith, women of faith, women and men of resources, to come forward, our billionaires, and fund a major effort to push back on this genie of lawfare. The Pandora's Box has been opened but can be closed again and discarded,” he said.
