Federal Judge Rejects Challenge to Trump’s 2024 Ballot Access in Rhode Island

• November 28, 2023

A federal judge in Rhode Island on Monday tossed another challenge to former President Donald Trump’s eligibility for the 2024 ballot.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr., an Obama appointee, dismissed a 14th Amendment challenge to listing Trump on the Rhode Island ballot. John Anthony Castro, a little-known 2024 Republican presidential candidate, filed the lawsuit, along with several more in other states.

The Supreme Court declined in October to hear Castro’s appeal in his case filed in Florida. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found last week that Castro lacked standing to bring his New Hampshire lawsuit.

Castro’s lawsuits allege Trump is ineligible to hold office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which restricts officials who took an oath to the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” from holding office. He argues that he will lose potential voters and support if Trump remains a candidate.

McConnell made his decision in light of the reasons laid out in the 1st Circuit’s opinion, which found that Castro was not “a direct and current competitor” of Trump at the time of filing his complaint. “Accordingly, it follows that he has not shown that, as of that time, he had satisfied the injury-in-fact component of the standing inquiry,” the court ruled.

“The American people have the unassailable right to vote for the candidate of their choosing at the ballot box, something the Democrats and their allies driving these cases clearly disagree with,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “President Trump believes the American voters, not the courts, should decide who wins next year’s elections, and we urge a swift dismissal of all such remaining bogus ballot challenges.”

Courts have now rejected similar ballot challenges in Colorado, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Michigan. In a case brought by the left-wing donor-backed group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a state judge in Colorado ruled Nov. 17 that Trump had “engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 through incitement,” but determined that Section 3 did not apply to him because he is not an “officer of the United States.”

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected], and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

Katelynn Richardson | Reporter

Katelynn Richardson covers courts as a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Follow on X katesrichardson

Read the first chapter of The Woketopus right now for FREE

Today, even with President Trump’s victory, leftist elites have their tentacles in every aspect of our government.

The Daily Signal’s own Tyler O’Neil exposes this leftist cabal in his new book, The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.

In this book, O’Neil reveals how the Left’s NGO apparatus pursues its woke agenda, maneuvering like an octopus by circumventing Congress and entrenching its interests in the federal government.
You can read the first chapter of this new book for FREE in this eBook, The Woketopus: Chapter One using the secure link below.

GET MY FREE EBOOK