Democrats often warn about undermining democracy, but with Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows ruling to keep former President Donald Trump off the state's primary ballot, along with other actions being taken against his candidacy, "they're doing what they're projecting on other people" Allen West, a former U.S. representative and retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, said on Newsmax Sunday.
"Article 3 of the 14th Amendment applied to those people who have once taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution had been members of the House of Representatives or the Senate, but then joined with the Confederacy," West told Newsmax's "Sunday Report" about the clause being invoked to push back against Trump.
Trump, he pointed out, "has never been charged with insurrection, and no one has been charged with insurrection tied to Jan. 6."
"But then, this again is a stretch of reality for them to try to deny a candidate from being able to appear on the ballot," said West. "Bureaucrats should not have that type of authority whatsoever. I think that the Supreme Court will step in.
"The Supreme Court has to overrule this and they have to do it unanimously to send a clear message to these people trying to undermine the democratic process of this election."
Jack Kingston, a former Georgia representative and senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said he agrees with West.
He said Bellows is an "extremist ACLU activist" who was appointed to her position by the Maine Legislature, not elected by the state's citizens.
"There was not a charge of insurrection," and Trump has not been found guilty, said Kingston.
"This woman used an administrative procedure" and has made a "very, very weak case" against Trump.
But people who are against the former president "can't beat him at the ballot box, so they want to beat him in the courtroom, and what's also interesting too, she's had conversations with the secretary of state in Colorado, Jena Griswold, prior to making this decision," said Kingston.
The former congressmen also spoke out against the decision by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to veto a bill that would have banned transgender care for minors in the state, with West calling that a "horrible move."
"When you talk about this terminology that the left is put out, gender-affirming, this is not about affirming anyone's gender," he said. "There are two genders, male and female. What this is about this child and the mutilation.
"What I thought so interesting is that in the United States of America, people under the age of 18 cannot go out and get a tattoo but now all of a sudden, we're saying that we can go and remove healthy body parts from our children."
He added that it is "disturbing" to him to treat gender dysphoria, a mental condition, with a surgical procedure.
"You hear a lot of people talk about the military-industrial complex, but now we have a medical-industrial complex being big pharma," said West.
Kingston said he agreed that DeWine should not have vetoed the bill.
"I think it's perverse and it's undermining our democracy far more than some of these constitutional challenges we're seeing because it tears and rips the soul of the American fabric and the family, parental rights, and everything else," he said. "It's just dreadful."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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