Donald Trump sues Michigan for 2024 ballot access
LANSING, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - The fight over whether former President Donald Trump should be allowed on the 2024 ballot in Michigan continues.
This week, lawyers for the former president filed suit, arguing Trump didn't engage in the events that occurred on Jan. 6, 2021.
"An insurrection -- that's an attempt to take over the government; I've never seen a government taken over without guns," said Terry Johnson, an attorney with Kirsch Daskas Law Group. "There was not an attempt to overthrow the government. No one took anyone hostage. No one had firearms, rifles, or anything along these lines. This was a riot."
According to the lawsuit filed with Chief Appeals Court Judge Elizabeth Gleicher, Trump's lawyers wrote, "The events of January 6, 2021, were a riot. They were not an 'insurrection' for purposes of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. They did not amount to levying war against the United States."
"The question we have to ask is, has he committed a crime that would keep him off the ballot? And at this point, the answer is no. He's not even on trial for anything regarding January 6. So I don't understand the logic behind what some people are trying to do," Johnson said.
Attorney Angela Baldwin with the Miller Law Firm says the law used to argue that Trump shouldn't appear on the ballot is pretty simple.
"If you look up the word engage, and that's what this is really going to come down to, it means a voluntary effort to assist the insurrection or to bring a successful termination of an office, and the engagement doesn't require a previous conviction or a charge of a criminal offense," said Baldwin.
Baldwin said that while she feels the argument to keep Trump off the ballot has legs here in Michigan, it won't be the final call.
"They will most certainly appeal," she said. "The losing side will do so just because of the important nature of this case."
