Politics played no role in her unilateral decision to bar former President Donald Trump from the state primary ballot, the Maine Secretary of State has claimed.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has denied that politics played any role in her unilateral decision to bar former President Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot, as she faces backlash that includes a push for her impeachment.
Ms. Bellows, whose office oversees elections in Maine, ruled on Dec. 28 to disqualify President Trump, who currently leads the Republican primary race, from the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot on the grounds that he supposedly incited an “insurrection” when a crowd breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Her decision was based on an interpretation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars people from holding office if they’ve engaged in an “insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. government. President Trump, who has denied such allegations, has not been charged with insurrection.
While Ms. Bellows has been accused of making a politically-driven decision to interfere in the election, she denied that her decision to disqualify President Trump from the ballot was political.
“Politics and my personal views played no role,” Ms. Bellows, a Democrat, claimed in a Jan. 1 interview with NPR. “I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, and that is what I did.”
Despite such denials, Ms. Bellows has faced sharp criticism.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called her a “virulent leftist” and a “hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat who has decided to interfere in the presidential election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden.”
Maine state Rep. John Andrews, a Republican, has filed a request with the Maine Revisor’s office for Ms. Bellows to be impeached, while she claims to have received threats and said her house was swatted.
“I stand by doing my job, but the response, the threats of violence and threatening communications, have been unacceptable,” she told NPR.
Ms. Bellows’ decision to bar President Trump from the Maine ballot on 14th Amendment grounds followed a similar decision by the Colorado Supreme Court, which the Trump team has also criticized as is set to appeal to the nation’s highest court.
By Tom Ozimek
