CHEYENNE — A Laramie lawyer has appealed the dismissal of his attempt to bar former President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., from the Wyoming ballot to the Wyoming Supreme Court.
On Jan. 4, U.S. District Judge Misha Westby granted Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s motion to dismiss the case, Newcomb v. Chuck Gray, on the grounds that the lawsuit is “not yet ripe.” Laramie-based lawyer Tim Newcomb, who filed the lawsuit against Gray in November, submitted an appeal of the district court’s dismissal to the Wyoming Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The Wyoming Supreme Court received the appeal on Friday and is currently waiting for the transfer of transcripts from the district court. District court orders have to be filed within 60 days, unless there is a request for an extension, which could prolong the process.
Newcomb responded to Gray’s motion to dismiss the case in his appeal. In that motion, Gray said Newcomb’s “complaint is frivolous” and that the lawyer lacked standing. According to court documents, Lummis and U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman “nationally amplified” Gray’s comments that Newcomb’s complaint was not only frivolous, but also an example of “constitutional idiocy.”
Newcomb argues in his appeal that he does have standing to sue “because his claim is justiciable, and a declaratory judgment from the Court enjoining Defendant Gray from including Mr. Trump and Ms. Lummis on Wyoming ballots provides him an effective remedy.”
“The (2020) election was not stolen and Secretary Gray — like Mr. Trump, Ms. Lummis and Ms. Hageman — knew it was not,” Newcomb wrote in the filed appeal.
Newcomb did not respond to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle’s request for comment Friday.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, also known as the “Disqualification Clause,” disqualifies any person from holding office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion… or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
In his appeal, Newcomb argues Trump “gave aid or comfort to (the United States’) enemies three times.” The first was when the president “met alone and secretly with (Vladimir) Putin — for two hours.” The second time was when Trump denied losing the 2020 presidential election and spread claims it was stolen. The third time “was when he refused to protect Congress from his terrorists.”
As for Lummis, Newcomb claimed the U.S. senator violated her oath to the U.S. Constitution when she refused to count certified electoral votes in Pennsylvania.
Newcomb said grounds for his claims are “simply recited facts cited” in preceding cases, including those filed by U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith in United States v. Donald J. Trump.
Gray supports Trump’s case in Colorado
The Colorado State Supreme Court made national headlines on Dec. 19 when it became the first state to decide Trump’s name should be removed from the 2024 Republican primary election ballot, on the basis of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed earlier this month to hear the appeal on the Colorado high court’s decision, with oral arguments set for Feb. 8. Gray submitted a brief in support of Trump on Thursday to the Supreme Court, where he argued “Trump did not engage in an insurrection or rebellion, nor give aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States.”
“As Secretaries of State, we must stop the radical left’s unAmerican and unconstitutional attempts to weaponize the Fourteenth Amendment against the American People,” Gray stated in a news release. “I have been repeatedly attacked by the radical left-wing media for my efforts to ensure that Trump will be on the ballot. But I will continue to defend election integrity and ensure that the people of Wyoming can choose who to elect for themselves.”
In his brief to the Supreme Court, his filed motion in December to dismiss the Wyoming lawsuit and an op-ed piece submitted the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Gray makes the claim that the attempt to remove Trump from state ballots is a “threat posed by (the) radical leftwing.”
“Rest assured, I have been and will continue to fight back against these unprecedented, radical leftwing attempts to remove Donald Trump from the ballot and interfere with our elections.”
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