Free Speech For People (a national nonpartisan public interest legal advocacy organization that, in 2022, filed the first challenges, and conducted the first trial under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause in 150 years) and Mi Familia Vota Education Fund (a national civic engagement non-profit organization that unites Latino, immigrant, and allied communities to promote social and economic justice through citizenship workshops, voter registration, and voter participation), together welcome the U.S. Department of Justice’s detailed four-count criminal indictment of disgraced ex-president Donald Trump. 

The allegations in this criminal indictment are entirely consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause (Section 3) which says: “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States … who, having previously taken an oath … as an officer of the United States … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” 

Although the Department of Justice did not specifically charge Trump under the criminal insurrection statute, both historical precedent and modern judicial decisions confirm that the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause does not require prior conviction (or even charging) of a criminal offense; indeed, the vast majority of disqualified ex-Confederates were never charged with any crimes for their participation in that rebellion.  

“These criminal charges will hold Trump accountable in the criminal justice system, but states don’t need any permission from federal prosecutors to move forward on excluding him from presidential ballots under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause,” says Ron Fein, Legal Director of Free Speech For People. “We call on secretaries of state and chief election officials to follow the mandate of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, use the power that Justice Gorsuch confirms they have, and refuse to list Trump on presidential ballots. And if they don’t, we’re ready to sue.”

“We know that Donald Trump believes he is above the law. In this country, no one is above the law. He must be held accountable for all his crimes, including the federal offenses related to his conspiracies to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” says Héctor Sánchez Barba, Executive Director and CEO of Mi Familia Vota. “We must continue to strengthen our democracy. That is why we are urging Secretaries of State and chief election officials across the country to carry out the mandate of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment and bar Trump from the ballot.”

In November 2022, following Trump’s announcement declaring his candidacy again for President, Free Speech For People and Mi Familia Vota Education Fund launched the Trump Is Disqualified Campaign to press chief election officials across the country to enforce Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment and bar Trump from any future ballot.

Free Speech For People, which in 2022 led the first challenges under the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause since Reconstruction, has written to the secretaries of state or other chief election officials of all fifty states and the District of Columbia, urging them to exercise their statutory and constitutional authority to strike Trump’s name from presidential primary ballots because of his constitutional ineligibility, just as they would if he were underage or not a natural-born citizen–an authority that U.S. Supreme Court Justice (then Judge) Neil Gorsuch has upheld. Further, Free Speech For People plans to file candidate eligibility challenges to Trump’s candidacy in multiple key states for the 2024 presidential election, using long-standing state procedures to challenge candidates as constitutionally ineligible for the offices they seek.