ABC Chief Legal Analyst Dan Abrams said Wednesday morning on “Good Morning America” that former President Donald Trump has “real legal arguments” to use to defend himself.
Trump’s team appealed to a Maine court Tuesday a ruling by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows kicking the former president off the ballot under the 14th Amendment. A group of Republicans in Colorado challenged a similar ruling kicking Trump off the ballot.
Abrams discussed with Stephanopoulos the chances the Supreme Court will take up Trump’s legal challenge of the Maine and Colorado decision.
Abrams said “there is no doubt in my mind [the Supreme Court is] going to take this case” and “the advantage that the Donald Trump team has is that if they accept any one of the arguments, he wins.”
“We could go through the five or so arguments that he has,” Abrams explained. “You have a due process argument, you have definitional arguments, you have questions about whether it’s self-executing or whether you need Congress to make laws–”
“Is the president even covered?” Stephanopoulos chimed in.
“Exactly! Is the president even covered? If he wins on any one of those arguments, he wins,” Abrams said. “And that’s the challenge that the other side is going to have.”
“I think you and I both begin from the premise that the Supreme Court simply does not want to step in and decide the election,” Stephanopoulos said. “That there’s no way they’re going to uphold the Maine decision or the Colorado decision. We may be proven wrong, but what’s the argument?”
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“There are real legal arguments that Donald Trump has,” Abrams argued. “And because there’s a menu of outs for the court, they’re going to find one, I would think, that will say Donald Trump can remain on.” (RELATED: CNN Legal Analyst Lays Out One Argument That Could Be ‘Longshot’ For Trump’s Team In Colorado)
Abrams argued Trump can argue lack of due process since he has never been formally charged with an insurrection but argued Trump’s claim of “total immunity” from the litany of legal battles he faces is unlikely.
Trump argued in his Maine appeal that Bellows was a biased decision maker, lacking the legal authority to remove him from the ballot, and made “multiple errors of law and acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner.”
Trump argues Section Three of the 14th Amendment “is not self-executing and requires congressional legislation.” The team also argues the president is not an “officer of the United States.”