Former President Donald Trump has appealed the Maine secretary of state’s decision that he is ineligible to run for president because he engaged in an insurrection, the first step in his court fight to remain on the ballot in the state.
Trump’s legal team filed the appeal in state court on Tuesday, just five days after Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, plunged the state into an intensifying national dispute over whether the Constitution bars Trump from returning to the White House.
That dispute likely will ultimately be resolved by the Supreme Court, and Trump is expected in the coming days to file a separate appeal there in hopes of reversing a Colorado ruling that deemed him ineligible.
In Maine, however, he must first proceed through the state court system. His appeal on Tuesday did not break much new ground from the arguments his legal team has made in other court cases and hearings........