Former AG Barr blasts 'foolish' efforts to remove Trump from primary ballots

Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Tuesday called on the Supreme Court to shut down efforts to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot, calling such endeavors "foolish" and "politically counterproductive."

The Colorado Supreme Court in December determined that Trump's role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot amounted to "engaging in insurrection" and thus disqualified Trump from reclaiming the presidency under the 14th Amendment. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows subsequently concluded that Trump was ineligible along a similar line of reasoning.

In an op-ed for The Free Press, Barr insisted that such conclusions lacked constitutional legitimacy and that the 14th Amendment provided minimal guidance as to determining Trump's eligibility, given he has not been convicted for inciting an insurrection.

"As a legal matter, states do not have the power to enforce the disqualification provision of the Fourteenth Amendment by using their own ad hoc procedures to find that an individual has engaged in an insurrection," he wrote. "If the Justice Department, in pursuing its criminal case, had found that Trump had engaged in insurrection, it would be another story. But it has not."

"Obviously, there has to be a fair fact-finding procedure before someone can be branded an insurrectionist. But what should that process be? The Fourteenth Amendment is silent on this," he went on, further noting that the amendment provided Congress the authority to enforce it through legislation and that the legislature had passed such measures.

"The point is that in present-day America, under existing law, the only way to disqualify someone under Section Three is through criminal prosecution under Section 2383. The federal government, which has painstakingly examined the events of January 6, has not charged President Trump with insurrection or even incitement," Barr added.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.