Haley says she would pardon Trump as president if he’s convicted

PREMIUM: Donald Trump must be defeated by the American people at the ballot box

The decision by Shenna Bellows, secretary of state of Maine, to rule Donald Trump ineligible as a presidential candidate was a mistake. That her decision was followed in a few hours by a contrary decision by Shirley Weber, secretary of state of California, confirms how mistaken it was.

Two officials, the most senior responsible for elections in their states, reaching opposite conclusions on the same facts suggests that the case against Mr Trump is far from watertight.

On principle, if there is any reasonable doubt about Mr Trump’s eligibility, he should be allowed to stand. In a democracy, it is for the people to decide who is and who is not a suitable person to hold office.

But there is an equally strong argument that, in practice, the attempts to block Mr Trump’s candidacy only help him.

Following the Colorado ruling, all four of Mr Trump’s rival GOP candidates put on something of a united front and spoke out to slam the move.

On Thursday, they all once again criticised the decision coming out of Maine.

Rachel Sharp has the details.

Section Three of the amendment prohibits those who take part in insurrections or aid enemies of the US government from taking office.

To date, such challenges have been brought in both federal district and state courts across at least 16 states.

While Mr Trump says he plans to appeal the Colorado decision, likely taking the case up to the US Supreme Court, he is also preparing for challenges, appeals and decisions in other states.

Former GOP lawmaker Adam Kinzinger has revealed new details about Donald Trump’s alleged bad odour, claiming that he reeks of a combination of several unsavoury scents including “armpits, ketchup, a butt”.

Speaking on The MeidasTouch Network on Thursday, Mr Kinzinger reignited the claims around the former president’s “not good” smell and launched into a lengthy description of it.

“It’s not good. The best way to describe it… take armpits, ketchup, a butt and makeup and put that all in a blender and bottle that as a cologne,” he said.

“That’s kind of that. I’ve been amazed that everybody is just kind of learning about this now,” he added.

Secretary of State Dr Shirley Weber certified the list of candidates on Thursday night and sent it to county election officials, ahead of the 5 March presidential primary election.

Rachel Sharp has the story.

Donald Trump’s campaign team physically flew “fake elector” ballots across the country to Washington DC in a last-ditch effort to overturn the 2020 election, a new report claims.

According to CNN, leaked witness testimony from a Michigan state investigation shows how Mr Trump’s aides scrambled to deliver the allegedly fraudulent paperwork to vice president Mike Pence before he could certify the election results.

The so-called “fake electors” plot hinged on the fact that American presidents are not directly elected by the people, but rather by 538 “electors” who are selected by their states based on the outcome of the vote.

Mr Trump’s team allegedly pressured state legislators to ignore the vote and choose their electors by fiat. When that did not work, they assembled their own group of electors with no legal standing and pushed vice president Mike Pence to accept it instead of the real ones.

Now, audio clips from Mr Chesebro’s testimony released by CNN appear to show that Mr Trump’s team went to the trouble of flying the fake electors’ paperwork across the country in order to get them in front of Mr Pence before the election result was certified.

Maine has become the second state to disqualify Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot, claiming the former president is ineligible to run due to his involvement in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Shenna Bellows, the Maine Secretary of State, said in a filing on Thursday that the former president contributed to riots at the Capitol by using false claims of election fraud and then directing supporters there when Congress was set to certify the 2020 election results.

She added that Mr Trump was “aware of the likelihood for violence“ and “at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it.”

Ariana Baio filed this report on Thursday night.

The request from the Colorado State Central Republican Committee to the nation’s highest court on Wednesday follows an historic ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court that finds the former president is constitutionally ineligible from holding office over his role in engaging in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Alex Woodward has the details.

President Joe Biden has reacted to Donald Trump’s angry Christmas Truth Social post in which the former president expressed a desire that his opponents “rot in hell”.

In the midst of ostensibly wishing a Merry Christmas to all, the former president ranted about “Crooked Joe Biden”, “Deranged Jack Smith”, “World leaders, both good and bad”, and the “sick…THUGS” within the country who are looking “destroy our once great USA”.

In response to reporting on the post, President Biden — a practicing Catholic and regular church-goer — took the opportunity to highlight the deep contrasts in character between him and his expected 2024 opponent.

Louisiana has joined a lengthy list of states where voters are seeking to disqualify Donald Trump from primary ballots after a woman filed a lawsuit claiming he was ineligible from office for inciting the January 6 riots.

Ashley Reeb, from Chalmette, filed the action on 22 December in East Baton Rouge Parish, asking a judge to block the Republican frontrunner from March’s primary for his efforts to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after his 2020 election loss.

“Both Trump’s actions (engaging in insurrection) as well as his inaction (giving aid and comfort to insurrectionists) on [6 January 2021], disqualify him from holding any office of/under the United States,” Ms Reeb stated in the suit.