Former President Donald Trump's campaign on Thursday released a fiery response to the decision by Maine's top election official to remove Trump from the state's 2024 ballot.
Shenna Bellows, Maine's secretary of state, barred Trump from the state's presidential primary ballot under the Constitution's insurrection clause. Maine is the second state to block Trump based on the clause, following Colorado last week.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on December 19 that Trump should be disqualified from the state's ballot because of his alleged role in the riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The decision cited a clause in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which bars officials who have sworn an oath to the Constitution from holding office if they engaged in insurrection. Trump is also facing federal charges in connection to his actions leading up to the riots, which followed after the former president addressed his supporters during a rally on Capitol Hill.
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump's campaign, released a statement soon after Bellows' decision was announced.
"The Maine Secretary of State is a former ACLU 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," Cheung said. "We are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter.
Cheung continued: "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."
He added that a legal objection will be "quickly" filed against Bellows' ruling.
Several other states are still weighing challenges that seek to remove Trump from the 2024 primary ballot, but Trump has maintained that he did not engage in an insurrection and has accused those filing lawsuits against him of attempting election interference.
Bellows' decision only applies to the March primary election, and her ruling can be appealed to the state's courts.
In a statement about her decision, Bellows accused Trump of encouraging violence among his supporters.
"The record establishes that Mr. Trump, over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power," Bellows said.
She added: "I likewise conclude that Mr. Trump was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it."
Update 12/28/23 8:44 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include more information.
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