President Joe Biden’s inclusion on the ballot could be removed, according to a top Republican official in Missouri, as payback for two other states ruling that Donald Trump is ineligible because he “engaged in insurrection.”
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft posted on the social networking platform X on Friday, saying, “What has happened in Colorado & Maine is disgraceful & undermines our republic.” “While I expect the Supreme Court to overturn this, if not, Secretaries of State will step in & ensure the new legal standard for @realDonaldTrump applies equally to @JoeBiden!”
Ashcroft’s post was made soon after the Supreme Court decided to consider a ruling from Colorado’s highest court, which determined that Trump might be disqualified from the state’s primary due to his conduct preceding the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits anybody who “engaged in insurrection” from seeking office in the federal government, served as the foundation for the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision.
In an interview, Ashcroft stated that the purpose of his tweet was to “remind people of how severe this is.”
“I’m 99% certain the Supreme Court will stop it, but if they don’t, chaos is ahead and we’ve got to avoid it,” he stated to NBC News.
In favor of neither party, Ashcroft said he will file an amicus brief alerting the Supreme Court to what he thinks will happen if Colorado’s disqualification is upheld.
“You can guarantee that Republican states will follow suit if Democratic states declare they won’t allow these Republicans to run. It’s not good, either,” Ashcroft remarked. “If you’re playing a basketball game and the other team doesn’t have to dribble the ball, eventually you’re going to say, ‘Why am I worried about dribbling the ball?'”
When asked how Biden’s uprising would exclude him from the ballot, Ashcroft responded that he had “let an invasion unstopped into our country from the border.” He continued by saying that Vice President Kamala Harris “supported people that were rebelling against the U.S. government during the riots in 2020,” alluding to the racial justice demonstrations that followed the death of George Floyd.
Does that imply that she can’t run now that this is the norm? Since there is no standard, none of us can say,” he remarked.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the Biden campaign.
“Our Office is pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court has taken up Donald Trump’s appeal from the Colorado Supreme Court and will ensure clarity and consistency for all Secretaries of State on this question,” stated Michon Lindstrom, a spokesman for Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, in an email.
Last month, Texas’ Republican lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, expressed concern that Biden would also be fired since “since he’s been president, he’s allowed 8 million people to cross the border, disrupting our state far more than anything anyone else has done in recent history.”
While the cases are being handled by the court system, Trump is still listed on the ballot in Colorado and Maine, both of which have their primaries on Super Tuesday, March 5.
The case in Maine and the Colorado case differ slightly. It was there that the Democratic secretary of state decided Trump could not be on the ballot.
In general, Ashcroft stated that he didn’t think secretaries should have any role in selecting candidates for office.
He declared, “I don’t want to go there.” “I’m afraid for our election’s implications.