Rooks: Juries and voters should decide Trump’s fate

For a few days, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows landed squarely in the national spotlight as Maine became the second state with a decision denying Donald Trump a place on the March 5 primary ballot.

For all the ire it aroused, Bellows’ written decision is straightforward and matter-of-fact.

She concluded about the events of Jan. 6, 2021, that “Mr. Trump’s occasional requests that rioters be peaceful and support law enforcement do not immunize his actions . . . The weight of the evidence makes clear that Mr. Trump was aware of the tinder laid by his multi-month effort to delegitimize a democratic election, and then chose to light a match.”

It’s hard to argue that this summary is faulty while considering provisions of the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection or “disability” clause in the 14th Amendment.

The Colorado Supreme Court’s earlier decision reached the same conclusion in ruling Trump off the “Super Tuesday” Republican primary ballot on March 5 – the same day Maine voters head to the polls.

Further, both sides of the controversy, including Trump’s attorneys, agreed that Trump did in fact lose the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Yet Trump’s insistent denial he lost has fueled his activities ever since, three long years and counting.

While not unexpected, Bellows’ ruling sent Maine’s comparatively staid political rhetoric off the rails, with House Republican Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham referring to Bellows as a “partisan hack.” And the minority GOP’s vow to ask for a legislative impeachment inquiry is downright silly.

All eyes now turn to the U.S. Supreme Court, which must decide the issues involved in record time. While the Colorado ruling has already been appealed, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court may also hear one, though it must be speedy.

As usual, media and partisan furor over the ballot rulings leaves out another case – one far more consequential – that the court will soon take on.

That’s Trump’s appeal of a trial court judge’s ruling he is not immune from Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s charges that Trump violated federal conspiracy laws on Jan. 6. The trial date of March 4, a day before “Super Tuesday,” is on hold until appellate courts resolve the issue.

The high court routed the immunity case through the D.C. Court of Appeals, which will consider both sides’ filings, appropriately, by Jan. 6.

If the Supreme Court has any common sense left – after its egregious recent decisions on abortion and guns, and numerous ethical lapses by its current senior justice, Clarence Thomas – it will consider the immunity and ballot access cases in concert, and hand down decisions the same day.

One hopes they will be unanimous. Contrary to the speculation and odd-laying, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be, as long as Chief Justice John Roberts insists on consensus.

Legally, that could be easier than it looks.

Those who believe and ruled that Trump engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6 after months of denying he’d lost, have taken the Constitution’s wording to mean that Trump cannot then appear on a primary or general election ballot.

But what the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, actually says it that no one who’s engaged in insurrection – i.e. many ex-Confederates seeking office after the then-recent Civil War – “shall be” an officer of the United States or “hold” any such office.

This does not necessarily mean denying ballot access; 1st Amendment free speech claims by Trump’s lawyers may be legally compelling.

As for Trump’s immunity claims, they may be momentous but the law isn’t complicated. Trump’s lawyers convince no one by repeating Richard Nixon’s notorious Watergate tape claim that “if the president does it, it’s legal.”

Trying to prevent certification of one’s election loss cannot possibly be part of any president’s “official duties.” In fact, we have only the Nixon Department of Justice’s opinion – never reviewed by any court – that a president can’t be indicted while in office.

Nixon certainly could have been. The “unindicted co-conspirator” in numerous Watergate indictments, his Aug. 8, 1974 resignation avoided certain impeachment and conviction.

Trump, far more shameless, brazens it out and even seeks a bizarre form of “redemption” by running for president a third time.

The Supreme Court must now restore order. Under the Constitution and the deepest traditions of this nation, no man is above the law.

Trump’s conspiracy trial, including four felony charges among 91 pending against the ex-president, should proceed on schedule.

But Trump’s name can remain on the ballot without harm to the Republic. Excluding it would again violate our common understanding of what it means to be the world’s leading democracy.

Then it’s up to the voters – and the jurors – to do their job.

Douglas Rooks has been a Maine editor, columnist and reporter since 1984. His new book, “Calm Command: U.S. Chief Justice Melville Fuller in His Times, 1888-1910,” is available in bookstores and at www.melvillefuller.com. He welcomes comment at drooks@tds.net

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Rooks: Juries and voters should decide Trump’s fate