Republican presidential candidate John Anthony Castro threatened on Monday Donald Trump, who recently sought to disqualify the former president from voting in several states ahead of the 2024 election, saying he would face “legal hell.”
Castro, a tax attorney in Texas, has sharply criticized the former president for his alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol, He posted a photo showing legal documents from eight states that supported Trump during the 2020 election on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Happy Labor Day! About to unleash legal hell on @realDonaldTrump in red states he thought safe…but they are on blue circuits. Zero path to 270,” he wrote Monday afternoon.
He is challenging Trump’s candidacy in Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, North Carolina, West Virginia, Montana, Kansas and Idaho, the documents show. Of those states, analysts only see North Carolina as competitive in the 2024 election, but Trump’s inability to capture any of those votes will complicate his path to winning the Electoral College.
However, Castro’s lawsuit has so far failed to keep Trump from going to the polls. Castro, who also donated to Trump’s campaign after his 2016 election victory, has filed a lawsuit in Florida seeking to disqualify the former president and in other states, including battleground state New Hampshire.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said Weekly newspaper On Monday, Castro tried to make Trump’s disqualification “unlikely” but likely “deserving of a ‘Hail Mary’ for Trump’s opponents because Section III of the Fourteenth Amendment does not end in this way.” way to file a lawsuit.”
The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits anyone who “participates in rebellion or insurrection” from running for office. Trump’s critics have sought to demonstrate that this also applies to the former president because of his role on Jan. 6.
“The reason Castro’s efforts may not be successful is that Trump has not been charged with, let alone convicted of, insurrection or insurrection. Under the simple language of the Constitution, no conviction is required, but it illustrates that even those Trump, who is prosecuting, believes there is insufficient evidence to convict him or of insurrection or sedition,” he wrote.
Rahmani added that any ruling against Trump would be appealed and brought to the Supreme Court, which currently has a conservative majority and is “unlikely” to rule against the former president.
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A lawsuit in Florida has been dismissed by Judge Aileen Cannon, known for her work on the classified documents case at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where the former president was indicted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) earlier this year. Trump, meanwhile, has maintained his innocence in the case.
“The fact that all Trump cases are assigned to Judge Canon cannot be a coincidence,” Castro previously said. Weekly newspaper. “I’m a mathematician, so I can tell you, like the odds of that happening in Las Vegas are very high. You know what I mean? It’s like lightning hitting the same place five times. “
Weekly newspaper Castro and the Trump campaign were reached by email for comment.
Castro isn’t alone in wanting to use the Fourteenth Amendment to keep Trump from going to the polls. On Friday, Judge Robin Rosenberg, appointed by former President Barack Obama, dismissed the case challenging Trump’s 2024 candidacy.
Florida attorney Lawrence Kaplan and two others argued in the lawsuit that Trump needed to be barred from voting in Florida because of his alleged role in the Capitol riot. However, Rosenberg ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the lawsuit.
Castro, who has emerged as a Republican contender for the 2024 Republican nomination, said he supported the lawsuits because he was directly influenced by Trump’s participation in the vote.
