Donald Trump hits back at campaign to block 2024 bid

The move to disqualify the former president cites an ‘insurrection clause’ in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.

Donald Trump was found liable for defamation on Wednesday in a second case brought by the writer E Jean Carroll. Pictures: AFP

Donald Trump denounced a campaign to force him off the ballot in next year’s presidential election after he suffered another defeat in court on Wednesday.

The move to disqualify him cites an “insurrection clause” in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. Some Democrats and conservative legal scholars have argued that his alleged attempts to overturn his defeat at the 2020 election, culminating in the riot at the US Capitol, make him ineligible to hold federal office again.

Mr Trump has branded the legal challenge “election interference”. Writing on his Truth Social platform, he said the move to disqualify him had “no legal basis” and was “just another trick” to “steal an election” for President Joe Biden, who was “incapable of winning in a free and fair election”.

Mr Trump was found liable for defamation on Wednesday in a second case brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, who alleges that he raped her in a New York store in the mid-1990s. A federal judge ruled in her favour and said the trial would simply have to determine how much Mr Trump must pay in damages.

In May he was ordered to pay Ms Carroll $US5m ($7.8m) in damages after a jury found he had sexually abused and defamed the writer, although he claimed he did not know her and that she was not his “type”. Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled on Wednesday that the May verdict would now carry into the second trial, brought by Ms Carroll over comments Mr Trump made in 2019 that she had made up the rape allegation to boost sales of her memoir. Ms Carroll is seeking more than $US10m in damages. The trial is set to open in January.

Election officials in several states, including the battlegrounds of Arizona, Michigan and New Hampshire, are studying whether Mr Trump should be removed from the 2024 ballot. Section three of the 14th Amendment bars anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US from holding elected office.

Legal scholars have argued that Mr Trump is disqualified under the clause, even if he is not convicted in the criminal cases against him. However, some Trump opponents have argued that legal efforts to disqualify the former president could be disastrous, wrecking public trust in the electoral system, deepening America’s political divide and inviting violent retaliation from his supporters.

Mr Trump faces four criminal indictments in total and will have to attend court hearings in four different cities next year, at the height of the Republican primary race and into the presidential campaign itself. In addition to federal charges in Washington and state charges in Georgia over his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election result, he faces charges in Florida over classified documents seized at his Mar-a-Lago home, and an indictment in New York over hush-money payments made to conceal an alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has dismissed the indictments as a “witch-hunt” orchestrated by Mr Biden, the Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans to undermine his presidential campaign. Despite his mounting legal troubles, Mr Trump retains a commanding lead in the Republican primary race.

The Times