Feb. 1, 2024 - Epoch Times
09:14
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| Heading into the 2024 election, there's a national phenomenon that you should really know about. | |
| Up on your screen right now is a map of the United States, and highlighted are all of the states where lawsuits have been filed in order to kick President Trump off of the ballot in that particular state. | |
| Now, the arguments for all these different lawsuits differ. | |
| But they all predominantly revolve around the same central idea, that since President Trump, quote-unquote, engaged in an insurrection on January 6th, he should, therefore, be disqualified from holding office as per the 14th Amendment. | |
| Now, going back to the map, you can see that the states in dark orange are those where the effort to get President Trump disqualified have been dismissed. | |
| This usually involves the case going all the way up to that state Supreme Court and then subsequently getting rejected. | |
| That the states in purple are those where Trump actually wound up getting disqualified from the ballot, although in both of those two states, in both Colorado and Maine, the case is currently being appealed by Trump's legal team all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. | |
| And that the remaining states, the ones in yellow, are those where the legal disqualification challenges remain unresolved. | |
| Meaning, in those states, they're still being worked through the actual legal channels, through the court system. | |
| However, as of today, we can officially cross Illinois off of that list, given the fact that just yesterday, President Trump scored a victory with the state election board there. | |
| Specifically, what happened over in Illinois is that on January 4th of this year, a left-wing organization called Free Speech for People, they filed a petition with the state election board urging them to drop President Trump's name off of the ballot. | |
| Their legal theory was that, quote, And by the way, just for your general reference, this is the very same group that actually proved successful at removing Trump's name off of the ballot over in the state of Colorado. | |
| Now, for their part, lawyers for President Trump, they made the counterargument, telling the Illinois State Election Board that, quote, he did not engage in insurrection and that the board has no jurisdiction to rule on insurrection. | |
| Now, during this hearing, former Illinois Judge Clark Erickson served as the hearing officer as the two sides were presenting their oral arguments. | |
| And after hearing both sides, Judge Erickson issued a 21-page recommendation, you can see it up on your screen, to the election board, urging them to go ahead and grant President Trump's motion to dismiss the case. | |
| Although this is where things in his recommendation got a bit, you can say, strange. | |
| Quote, Mr. | |
| Erickson had recommended that the board grant President Trump's motion to dismiss the case, but he also determined that January 6th constituted an insurrection, and he recommended that the board remove President Trump on that basis if they did not grant the motion to dismiss. | |
| Given that the board is not obligated to follow the general counsel's recommendation, Mr. | |
| Erickson then outlined why he believed President Trump should be removed if the challenge is assessed on its merits, whether he is disqualified for engaging in insurrection under Section 3, largely echoing the Colorado trial court's rationale. | |
| Meaning, in plain English, that after the actual hearing, after the legal teams for both President Trump and this left-wing organization gave their oral arguments, the former judge overseeing the case, he gave his official recommendation to the state election board, saying that the best thing that they can do is to dismiss this case altogether. | |
| However, he also made a point to mention that if the election board chooses to not just outright dismiss the case, and to instead judge the case based on its legal merits, then, at least in his opinion, President Trump should be disqualified from the ballot as per the 14th Amendment. | |
| That's because, in the opinion of this judge, what took place on January 6th was an insurrection, and according to him, President Trump did engage in it. | |
| And one really interesting thing to note here is that you might remember how on January 6th, during the actual riot, President Trump issued two messages on social media calling for people to be peaceful and to leave the Capitol and go home. | |
| However, in this 21-page document, which kind of gives us a glimpse into the thinking of this judge, He dismissed this call for peace as being nothing more than a smokescreen. | |
| Here's specifically what he wrote. | |
| Quote, I determined that these calls to peace via social media, coming after an inflammatory tweet, are the product of President Trump trying to give himself plausible deniability. | |
| Perhaps he realized just how far he had gone and that the effort to steal the election had failed because Vice President Pence had refused to accept the bag of fraudulent electors. | |
| It was time to retreat, with a final tweet telling the nation that he loved those who had assembled and attacked the Capitol. | |
| And so despite what President Trump actually said, this judge claims to know what was in President Trump's actual mind. | |
| And so that was the opinion of the judge. | |
| And the recommendation that he gave to the state election board was, again, to dismiss the case, or, if you judge it on its merits, to disqualify President Trump. | |
| You then fast forward four days, and on Tuesday of this week, the Illinois State Board of Elections, they held their actual meeting to vote on whether or not to include Trump on the ballot. | |
| You can see video of the meeting since the entire thing was recorded. | |
| And just for reference, the state election board in Illinois is a bipartisan group with equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats sitting there at the table. | |
| And after getting together, the state board voted unanimously to dismiss the challenge against President Trump. | |
| And in terms of why? | |
| Well, board member Jack Vredt, he said the following in a statement. | |
| If we exceeded our authority and looked at the underlying of conduct, I think what we would see would be an opening of floodgates of litigation. | |
| For example, every school board candidate could then challenge their rivals over alleged criminal conduct and require election boards to investigate. | |
| The relief that petitioners are seeking is one of ballot forfeiture, and they had not met that threshold. | |
| Likewise, you had board member Christina Cray make a statement as well, making a point to specifically mention that she herself was a Republican, but added that quote. | |
| There's no doubt in my mind that President Trump engaged in insurrection. | |
| However, the board does not have the jurisdiction to rule on such an issue. | |
| And so, there you have it. | |
| Another challenge to get President Trump off of the ballot is scrapped. | |
| Now, in terms of the next steps, this is where things you can say get interesting. | |
| Because this particular decision by the Illinois State Election Board, it can be appealed to state court. | |
| However, in almost exactly one week, on Thursday of next week, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to come out and rule on the matter for the entire country. | |
| Specifically, if you look at the schedule for the Supreme Court and you look at next Thursday, which is February the 8th, you'll see that besides hearing the oral argument in the Trump v. | |
| versus Colorado case, the note indicates that the U.S. Supreme Court is intending to announce their written opinion on that very same day. | |
| Quote, while the substance of the opinions has not been revealed, the declaration that they will be published on February 8th is significant, as it indicates that the Supreme Court views the case as having significant legal importance and warrants expedited consideration. | |
| Meaning that by Thursday of next week, which is just a week and one day from today, this map right here might become totally irrelevant, as whatever the U.S. Supreme Court decides will wind up being the law of the land in all 50 states. | |
| We'll just have to wait and see what they ultimately decide regarding Trump's inclusion on the ballot. | |
| Until then, if you'd like to read the details of this case out in Illinois, I'll throw all my reference notes. | |
| They'll be down in the description box below this video if you're the type of person that likes to dig into the weeds. | |
| And I should quickly mention that it's that same description box right below those like and subscribe buttons, both of which I hope you take a super quick moment to smash so that this information can reach ever more people via the YouTube algorithm. | |
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