The Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to bar former President Donald Trump from running for office in the 2024 presidential election on the grounds that he “engaged in insurrection” and is not eligible to hold public office.
The state’s highest court declined to apply the 14th Amendment’s Section Three to stop someone from seeking the presidency, making it the first decision of its kind in history. It did, however, state in its decision that the decision only applied to the state’s primary, leaving open the chance that plaintiffs would attempt to remove Trump from the general election ballot in November, the Associated Press reported.
The decision is the first in a string of lawsuits brought by liberal organizations attempting to use Section Three to disqualify the front-runner in the Republican presidential primary by pointing to his involvement in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump has criticized the lawsuits, calling them “frivolous” attempts by “radical Democrat dark money groups” to sabotage democracy by getting in the way of his bid to win back the presidency.
