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U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, speaks ceremony for a Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer named for former President Lyndon Baines Johnson, Saturday, April 27, 2019, in Bath, Maine. (AP Photo/David Sharp)
Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) is opposed to Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ ruling that former President Donald Trump is ineligible for the ballot in Maine, as he has not been found guilty of insurrection.
Bellows’ controversial ruling, which came down on Thursday, will only take effect after the U.S. Supreme Court has a chance to weigh in, as Breitbart News’s Hannah Bleau Knudsen noted. In her ruling, Bellows cited Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, or the Insurrection Clause, as cause for to disqualify Trump from the ballot.
And while she told MSNBC she is “duty-bound to make this determination,” Golden issued a statement Trump should be on the ballot as he has not been convicted of insurrection, though Golden personally believes he participated in an “insurrection” on January 6, 2021:
I voted to impeach Donald Trump for his role in the January 6th insurrection. I do not believe he should be re-elected President of the United States. However, we are a nation of laws, therefore until he is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should be allowed on the ballot.
My statement on the Maine Secretary of State’s ruling: pic.com/ByO3XJe1JS
— Congressman Jared Golden (@RepGolden) December 29, 2023
Notably, in the federal case against Trump regarding his campaign’s challenge to the 2020 election results, special counsel Jack Smith has not charged him with either insurrection or seditious conspiracy. The charges include Conspiracy Against Rights, Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding, and Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding.
WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 09: Special Counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks on a recently unsealed indictment against former President Donald Trump at the Justice Department on June 9, 2023 in Washington, DC. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has been indicted on 37 felony counts in the special counsel’s classified documents probe. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The Trump campaign slammed Bellows in a statement on Friday morning.
“The Maine Secretary of State is a former ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] attorney, 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,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a Thursday statement, adding:
We are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter. Democrats in blue states are recklessly and un-Constitutionally suspending the civil rights of the American voters by attempting to summarily remove President Trump’s name from the ballot. Make no mistake, these partisan election interference efforts are a hostile assault on American democracy. Biden and the Democrats simply do not trust the American voter in a free and fair election and are now relying on the force of government institutions to protect their grip on power
