Shenna Bellows Calls Movement to Impeach Her ‘Absurd’ After Trump Ruling

Maine’s prime election official, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, referred to as any impeachment try in opposition to her “absurd” over her determination to maintain former President Donald Trump off the 2024 Republican main poll.

In response to the Related Press, no less than one Republican lawmaker has vowed to pursue impeachment in opposition to Bellows, a Democrat, regardless of lengthy odds within the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

In an look with MSNBC’s Symone Sanders-Townsend on Saturday night time, Bellows acknowledged she was “doing her job and following the regulation in Maine” in ruling Trump is ineligible to run based mostly on Part 3 of the 14th Modification, which refers back to the regulation on insurrectionists holding excessive workplace.

Bellows responded to Sanders-Townsend in regards to the impeachment movement and claims that it disenfranchises Maine voters to take away Trump from the upcoming main poll.

“It is absurd, notably you do not impeach somebody for doing their job, as directed by the Maine State Legislature. I qualify Trump for the poll based mostly on his petitions and signatures. After which, it was (5) registered Maine voters who’ve the appropriate to try this (problem the nomination petition), below Maine state regulation.

“They introduced that problem, and below the legislature’s directive to me, I have to maintain a listening to inside 5 days, which I did, after which I’m required by the regulation to subject a choice on that listening to inside 5 days of the conclusion of the proceedings.”

Newsweek reached out to Bellows’ workplace by way of e mail for extra feedback.

Maine’s 5 challenges to Trump have been introduced ahead by two former Republican state senators and a former Democratic state senator, together with two residents.

On Thursday, Bellows concluded that Trump’s main petition is invalid. Particularly, her ruling states “the declaration on his candidate consent type is fake as a result of he’s not certified to carry the workplace of the President below Part Three of the Fourteenth Modification.”

The Trump staff is predicted to attraction the Maine determination.

“So, to question me for doing my job and following the regulation right here in Maine is absurd,” Bellows continued to Sanders-Townsend. “It is a few of this inflammatory rhetoric, assault the particular person reasonably than debate the difficulty at hand. Distract the general public from the difficulty at hand, reasonably than specializing in the rule of regulation and the Structure.”

In response to the Related Press, Maine state Rep. John Andrews referred to as Bellows’ determination “hyper-partisanship on full show” as he requested an impeachment continuing. He mentioned he despatched a discover to the state revisor’s workplace for a joint order when lawmakers’ return to the State Home in Augusta subsequent week.

“There may be bipartisan opposition to the acute determination made by the secretary of state. She has clearly overstepped her authority. It stays to be seen if her effort at voter suppression will garner sufficient Democrat help to take away her from her place,” Home Republican chief Billy Bob Faulkingham instructed the Related Press.

In a latest assertion, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung referred to as Bellows a “virulent leftist” who was interfering within the election.

Cheung added: “The Maine Secretary of State is a former ACLU lawyer and a hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat who has determined to intervene within the presidential election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden.

“We’re witnessing, in real-time, the tried theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter,” Cheung mentioned.

Trump has additionally been faraway from the poll in Colorado after a 4-3 determination by the state’s Supreme Court docket based mostly on Part 3 of the 14th Modification. The ruling in Colorado has already been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court docket.

A number of different states are nonetheless weighing challenges that search to take away Trump from their 2024 main ballots.