(Source: MIRS.news, Published 10/17/2023) Former President Donald Michigan lawyers say the Secretary of State cannot keep their client off the 2024 presidential election ballot since he did not engage in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
David Kallman and Stephen Kallman, of the Kallman Legal Group, on Monday filed a motion indicating Trump wants to intervene in Robert LaBrant's and Robert DAvis' separate Court of Claims lawsuits against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
“… President Trump seeks to uphold his constitutional right to have his name placed on the Michigan presidential primary and general election ballots for the 2024 election,” the court filing reads, noting that not allowing Trump to intervene “could deprive him” of his rights to file motions or an appeal.
Judge James Robert Redford will hear the cases together.
LaBrant, an attorney with a specialty in elections law, is the lead plaintiff on a suit that alleges Trump “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” when he directed the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.”
Davis filed a similar suit in September that also seeks a judgment that Benson cannot enforce the public act changing the date of the 2024 presidential primary from March 12 to Feb. 27.
“This request is manifestly inappropriate," the Kallman filing reads. “Both the federal constitution and Michigan law place the resolution of this nonjusticiable political question where it belongs: the democratic process, in the hands of either Congress or the people.”
Trump’s lawyers, including those with the Massachusetts-based Free Speech for People and Dhillon Law Group in California, argue the case should be tossed because no court nor Congress has held that Trump engaged in an insurrection. If the court were to declare such, it would “prevent Congress from fulfilling its constitutional obligations” when a non-qualified candidate is elected.
Trump’s lawyers also argue the plaintiffs lack standing and that the Fourteenth Amendment is not self-executing and “nothing has occurred to disqualify” Trump. Even if that were true, the attorneys argue that plaintiffs still wouldn’t succeed on the merits.
“Plaintiffs have no evidence that President Trump intended or supported any violent or unlawful activity seeking to overthrow the government of the United States, either on Jan. 6 or at any other time,” the Kallman filing reads.
