(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) U.S. District Court Judge Richard Myers II tossed out an activist attempt to prevent Rep. Madison Cawthorn from running for re-election on the basis that he participated in a “rebellion.”
The political stunt, inspired by corrupt leftist lawyer and Steele Dossier mastermind Marc Elias, sought to use the post-Civil-War 14th Amendment to drain the 26-year-old congressman’s resources and pull him away from the campaign trail.
The activists were supported in that effort by the state’s partisan Board of Elections, which claimed it had the authority to disqualify Cawthorn, who answered with a lawsuit against the board.
Myers, a Trump appointee, pointed to an 1872 Amnesty Act passed by Congress that dismantled section 3 of the amendment, which prohibited anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or those who aided them from holding public office.
The decision likely rendered moot any circular haggling over whether the Jan. 6 uprising at the US Capitol qualified as an “insurrection or rebellion” and the degree to which Cawthorn supported it.
Myers appeared to suggest in a statement that the mostly peaceful protest against the certification of the disputed Electoral College vote for Democrat Joe Biden was, in fact, constitutionally protected free speech.
“The federal court is tasked with protecting the soap box, the ballot box and the jury box,” Myers said, according to Carolina Public Press. “And when these fail, people proceed to the ammunition box.”
The lawyers for the elections board were likely to appeal the decision.
“The state board is reviewing the court’s decision with its counsel,” according to spokesperson Pat Gannon.
Cawthorn planned a press conference on Saturday afternoon to address the ruling.
In an exclusive interview in January, Cawthorn told Headline USA that the activists’ moonshot legal effort hinged on getting corrupt leftist judges who would put their biases above a strict interpretation of the law.
“They know it’s undefined, that they’re trying to make it what they want,” Cawthorn said. “They hope they can get a friendly judge in North Carolina to set a precedent and then use that to attack other candidates.”
A request for comment to Cawthorn’s communications director was not immediately returned on Friday, but Headline USA will update with any developments.
