Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump May INSTANTLY Be Removed from MORE BALLOTS

Episode Date: December 26, 2023

Trump may be banned by the Maine Secretary of State from the presidential ballot next week under a quirk in Maine law. Michael Popok of Legal AF explains how the fact that 8 different Colorado judges each agreed that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution of the United States and violation of the 14th amendment, may influence the secretary of state’s decision next week as well the likely appeal to the United States Supreme Court. Thanks to HIMS! Start your free online visit today at hims.com/legalaf for your personalized ED treatment options. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So the Michael Popok legal AF ever heard of Sheta Bellos secretary of state of Maine. No, it's not a jeopardy quiz, but you're going to hear a lot about Sheta Bellos next week because she's about to make a ruling as to whether Donald Trump will or will not be thumbs up or thumbs down on the main ballot for primary and for the presidential election next November. It's not just Colorado. That's considering these issues. We're still waiting for ultimate rulings in states like Michigan. As the US Supreme Court will likely get an appeal from Donald Trump as early as January the 4th of the Colorado decision that banned his being on the ballot. Now we're up to Maine. And this is a decision at first that gets

made by the Secretary of State of Maine because they have a unique constitution that determines that the Secretary of State upon a petition, not a lawsuit, but a petition directed to her, has to determine the eligibility of people on the ballot. She's already held it hearing. She's reviewed the petition. She's asked for briefing, including of Donald Trump himself. Donald Trump has taken the position that

Maine has no role in the process of deciding who goes on the ballot for president or not. It has to be the Electoral College and the Congress, which is the fundamental argument even in Colorado of the dissenting justices, just to be clear before I move back to Maine. In Colorado, it was four to three. But the four to three was as to whether the Colorado Secretary of State had the power and the authority to take Donald Trump off the ballot. It wasn't four to three as to whether Donald Trump was an insurrectionist or engaged an insurrection or rebellion as that term is used under the 14th amendment. In that case, it was unanimous.

All seven justices in Colorado, let's make it eight, including the trial judge, believed that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection or rebellion against his oath and against the Constitution of the United States. That's getting little press. Everybody's focused on it was four to three in the four were the Democrats and the three were the Republicans, even the Republicans didn't challenge the fact finding done by the court, the trial court level in Denver, Colorado, in which that trial judge found in her in after a week long trial that Donald Trump did engage an insurrection or rebellion that

the dispute, the falling out between the four and the three in Colorado, was over what you can do about it. Two of the dissenting justices said, and that Congress do it. Yeah, sure, he's an insurrectionist and engaged the rebellion and all that, but he wasn't convicted of it of a crime, even though that's not a requirement under the 14th Amendment of our Constitution, and let Congress do it, why are we dealing with it in Colorado? That was, I'm giving you the summary of my artist rendering of the dissents, but that was the dissent.

Again, seven justices of the Colorado Supreme Court found that he and that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution and the fight and the debate and the falling out was over what to do about it. Now we're back in Maine. In Maine, it's not in the court system. It's with the Secretary of State because the unique qualities of and provisions of the main Constitution and election law says that that's where it should be. So she, Shenabellos, the first woman secretary

of state of Maine, it's fallen on her shoulders, her broad shoulders to make this decision. She said after reading the briefing and having an open hearing on the 15th of December, she's going to make a ruling as early as next week. Now there's a shadow that's being cast on this decision making because it is likely that by January 4th or earlier, as permitted by the Colorado Supreme Court, Donald Trump's going to take an appeal as to whether Colorado got it right about their constitution, about their Secretary of State, and about who should be making the ultimate decision as to whether someone belongs in the ballot, the Secretary of State of that state, for instance, or Congress in the electoral college as Donald

Trump argues. And if they make that ultimate decision, and it's in favor of Donald Trump, and many of these decisions being made by secretary of states may actually fall by the wayside, but it depends on the unique aspects or provisions of the constitution of that particular state. And so what we have so far is that Shana Bellow's Secretary of State Bellows can certainly make her decision next week. If I had, if I was a betting man, given the fact that as I said, eight different judges

who have taken a look at the issue, think that Donald Trump violated the 14th Amendment, section three, the insurrection, uh, disqualification language. And then the fight is owned. The rub is only over what do you do about it? What does the state do about it? Do we put it over to the Congress? Do we put it over to the electoral college? Does the state have the power now, it's already been decided. Even by former 10th Circuit Judge, now Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Brett, sorry, Neil Gorsuch, that things like who goes on the ballot and off the ballot, even for a presidential candidate is the province of the state, not the federal government. And so if, if that kind of precedent, in a case

called Hassan, is then used by the US Supreme Court, where Gorsuch now sits, that would favor and strengthen the hand of a secretary of state like Shena Bellos. Real talk, 52% of men over 40 experience some form of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. Personally, all of my friends, once they had 40, started using something to help, whether they admitted it in the locker room or not, because it's always been a taboo topic. Thankfully, HIMS is changing that by providing affordable access to ED treatment all online. HIMS is changing men's health care by providing access to affordable and discrete sexual health treatments, all from the comfort

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What happens next if she decides, let's just, you know, for you know what, and giggles, let's say she rules as Colorado did did that Donald Trump does not belong on the ballot and that the petitions have been proven. Then it goes to a trial court level or an appeal to the superior court of Maine, not the appellate court, but it'll be the superior court sitting in sort of a palette review position, if you will. will then, there'll be a, they'll be hearing their briefing there or a argument there. And then any ruling there, the loser of that particular proceeding,

which I assume would happen sometime in early January, may or may not have the benefit of waiting to see what the US Supreme Court does in their proceeding. I'll talk about the timing of that next because we're trying to line up these different time intervals, these different spinning plates between the federal appeals process through the US Supreme Court and the state process. And a lot of times what state processes do where they sort of hit the intersection of US Supreme Court rulings or precedent or ones that are in progress

is that they sort of put a pin in their proceedings waiting to see what the US Supreme Court does for guidance. They may do that here. So I would think that, let's just play this out. Secretary of State Bellows sometime next week rules against Donald Trump, Bansam from the ballot in Maine March, Super Tuesday, March 5th is when he would be on the ballot. We're running out of time here. Maybe they would stay there a ban of Donald Trump from the ballot to give him time to take an appeal or to take it to the next level, which in this case would be the superior court of Maine, failing that two levels of of a pellet court process in Maine state. And then he could try to jump over to the

US Supreme Court. Could he try a direct to Trump, try a direct appeal? The way Jack Smith just did skip a couple of these steps, take the case and consolidate it with Colorado at the US Supreme Court. It's possible. But the Supreme Court would have to be willing to do that. And I'm not sure he has the votes for that. We just saw they declined. Jack Smith's strong, strenuous invitation for them to take a direct appeal and cut out the middle person of the DC court of appeals related to whether Donald Trump has immunity from prosecution in the District of Columbia case. And so having just rejected that two days ago, I be shocked if they decided they wanted to leapfrog over a number of levels of state appellate procedure and take the

case directly, but we'll keep an eye on it. And so this is how I think the timing goes. Really next week, adverse to Donald Trump by Secretary of State bellows in Maine, an appeal to the superior court and Maine. Superior Court does a quick briefing schedule, maybe over a 10-day process. Now we're in the middle of January, by this time, what I think will be an expedited appeal process that's granted by the US Supreme Court will be in the works about Colorado. And then by the end of January, I think we'll be looking at, we're looking at two events. We're looking at a fully briefed and fully appealed, exhausted appeal process in Maine by Donald Trump, if he loses. And at the same time, a fully briefed and perhaps oral argument in the, in the, in the Supreme

Court of the United States related to Colorado, which would then give guidance and would serve as precedent and cited precedent. I'm sure in the other states that are looking to ban Donald Trump. Now, we'll continue to follow events like this. It didn't get a lot of press because all eyes were on Colorado, but now all eyes, as I said, at the top of the hot tick are on Secretary of State, Shedda Bellos. And we trust that she'll make the right decision. She's now has guidance from Colorado Supreme Court in a well written 213 page decision. And if she wants to sort of put a pen in it for a while,

she could say, I think I need guidance from the US Supreme Court and see what the US Supreme Court says. And the fundamental issue with the US Supreme Court is going to be a couple of things. One, can a state be the one to decide based on its own process and procedures and its own hearings and petitions and lawsuits? Can it ultimately decide who could be on the presidential primary ballot? Who could be on the presidential general election ballot? Or is that something under the 14th Amendment Article 3 that's reserved for Congress in

some way, even though it doesn't say that in the statute itself, in the Congressional amendment itself, and these members of the Supreme Court, US Supreme Court, like to consider themselves originalists and textualists. They like to look at the literal text, and they say, well, we have to follow the literal text unless they don't like the literal text, and then they throw it out and do something else. But if you look at the legislative history around the framing of the 14th Amendment coming out of the Civil War period and during a reconstruction period in the United States, there was no requirement that there be an actual indictment, conviction, trial and conviction of somebody for insurrection or rebellion against

the Constitution. It says engaged in doesn't say convicted of engaging in. And I think that was done for a reason historically. They didn't want to put the country through these trials of former Confederate leaders and Jeff Davis, the president of the Confederacy, in order to invoke and trigger this provision. And the second reason is there's nothing in the provision that says there's a role for Congress. Congress has its own processes that we'll talk about at another hot take, impeachment and conviction in the Senate having, you know, being the lead way

that they can deal with things like this. But in the criminal court system, there's no role for Congress and no nothing that's not self-actuating or self-effectuating in the 14th Amendment itself. But we'll have to see how the six to three mega right wing of the Supreme Court deals with this particular issue. We'll follow it on legal AF, the podcast, only on the Midas Touch Network. It's on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time. And it sits at the corner of law politics and justice. I mean, if you like this kind of hot take, who doesn't like hot takes, you're going to love legal AF. So if you like what I'm doing here,

give me a thumbs up in a comment. It really does help with the ratings. It makes your voice heard and keeps me on the air. So until my next hot tick. Till my next legal AF. This is Michael Popock reporting. At MidasTouch, we are unapologetically pro democracy and we demand justice and accountability. That's why we're spreading our message to convict 45. That's right, gear up right now with your convict 45, tease and pins at store.mitustouch.com.

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