Another American state wants to exclude Trump from the primaries: “If you want to beat Putin, look for his mafia friends”

Another American state wants to exclude Republican Donald Trump from the presidential election. An Illinois court ruled on Wednesday (local time) that the ex-president should not participate in the vote due to his role in the storming of the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021. This was unanimously reported by several US media, including CNN and the New York Times. The reason given was that Trump had disqualified himself from the office of president due to his conduct in connection with the attack on the Capitol. Similar decisions had previously been made in the states of Colorado and Maine. The country’s Supreme Court is now considering the question. A decision awaits there.

Trump wants to stand again as a candidate for the Republicans in the American presidential elections in early November. Anyone who wants to run as a presidential candidate must first achieve victory in the party’s internal primaries. Plaintiffs have been trying for some time in several states to prevent Trump from participating in the primaries and to have the 77-year-old’s name removed from the ballots.

The Republican had legally defended himself against the previous decisions in Colorado and Maine – and his team immediately announced they would challenge the decision in Illinois as well. “This is an unconstitutional verdict that we will quickly appeal,” his campaign team said in a statement on Wednesday evening (local time). For now, Trump’s name will remain on the state’s ballot. The Republican primaries in Illinois are on March 19.

The first decision to remove Trump from the ballot was made in Colorado. The Republican turned to the nation’s highest court to overturn the Colorado ruling — it now acts as a quasi-representative of similar decisions in Maine and Illinois. In early February, there was a hearing at the Supreme Court on the sensitive legal and political issue. The judges there were skeptical about the possibility of excluding the ex-president from the highest office in the state. It is unclear when the Court will make a ruling on this.

The background to the dispute is the unprecedented attack on the US House of Representatives three years ago: Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. Congress met there to formally confirm Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Trump had earlier incited his supporters during a speech with baseless claims that massive fraud had robbed him of his election victory.

Opponents of Trump filed lawsuits across the country, arguing that the Republican had lost the right to run for president again because of his contribution to the attack. They point to the so-called prohibition of insurrection in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Accordingly, no person may hold a higher office in the state who has previously participated as a civil servant in an insurrection against the state. (sda/dpa)