Elie Honig Criticizes Maine Trump Ballot Ban: ‘Based Ruling’ on ‘YouTube Clips’ and Other ‘Things That Would Never Pass the Bar in Normal Court’
CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig criticized Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ decision to bar former President Donald Trump from the ballot on Thursday, arguing that Bellows based her ruling on “YouTube clips, news reports” and other “things that would never pass the bar in normal court.”
After Maine become the second state to bar Trump from the ballot, CNN anchor John Berman asked Honig, “The 14th Amendment, Section 3 says in plain text that if you shall have engaged in insurrection, you can’t be in office. She takes that to mean that if she determines that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection, he can’t be on the Maine primary ballot. Is it that simple?”
Honig replied, “No, it’s not that simple. So, clearly Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says, ‘Engage in insurrection, you’re out.’ We all have that. The complicated part, and where we are going to see this play out in the courts, is who gets to decide and by what process.”
Honig added that it was “important to note” that Bellows’ ruling “says she’s basically following the same legal reasoning as the Colorado Supreme Court did last week, and she says in her ruling if this gets struck down in Colorado, we’re out of luck too. So she’s basing it on the same legal argument.”
He continued:
Let me sort of lay out the arguments both sides. And by the way, it’s worth saying, we’re all theorizing here. We’re in legally unknown territory. The argument against is, first of all, the 14th Amendment Section 5 says Congress has the authority to pass laws to implement this. They did, they passed the criminal law, and the argument is that means Congress, not the states. But perhaps, and this is the argument that the Maine secretary of state and Colorado made, the states can do it too. If that’s true, then section 2– question two is, were the processes, were the hearings fair? Did they comport with due process?
And I think there’s a question there with regard to what Maine did, because if you look at the hearing, and she details this in the ruling, they heard from one fact witness, a law professor. She based her ruling on a lot of documents, but also YouTube clips, news reports, things that would never pass the bar in normal court. She’s not a lawyer, by the way. It’s a smartly written decision, clearly consulted with lawyers, but this is an unelected– she’s chosen by the state legislature. Chosen, elected by the legislature, but not democratically elected.
Later in the segment, Honig said, “I do think the Supreme Court is going to take this case. I think tonight’s ruling makes it even more likely.”
Honig – who got into a heated argument with anti-Trump lawyer George Conway on Wednesday over the topic – predicted that the Supreme Court would not “get into whether he [Trump] engaged in insurrection,” and would instead rule purely based on whether the states have the power to bar Trump from the ballot and, if so, whether they followed due process.
Watch above via CNN.
