{"id":2352453,"date":"2024-10-09T07:39:02","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T11:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/no-legal-justification-for-michigan-keeping-rfk-jr-on-ballot\/"},"modified":"2024-10-09T07:42:04","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T11:42:04","slug":"no-legal-justification-for-michigan-keeping-rfk-jr-on-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/no-legal-justification-for-michigan-keeping-rfk-jr-on-ballot\/","title":{"rendered":"No Legal Justification For Michigan Keeping RFK Jr. On Ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fno-legal-justification-for-michigan-keeping-rfk-jr-on-ballot%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2352453&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses the ongoing concerns\u2062 about the \u200dintegrity \u200cof the American legal system, particularly in\u2064 light of recent\u200b high-profile prosecutions of former President Donald Trump and others\u200d like John Eastman, Steve Bannon, and Peter Navarro. It\u200b focuses \u2064on a legal dispute in Michigan involving Robert F. Kennedy \u2062Jr., who asked Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to\u200d remove his \u2063name from the presidential ballot after withdrawing from the race. The article argues that Benson&#8217;s refusal is \u2063politically motivated,\u200d as it could influence the outcome of the upcoming 2024 election by\u2064 allowing votes to split in a way\u200b that might disadvantage Trump&#8217;s campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy&#8217;s \u200dsituation \u200cescalated to the courts, but \u200drather than upholding the law impartially, the article \u200dclaims the judges engaged in &#8220;legal sleight-of-hand&#8221; to justify Benson&#8217;s actions. It criticizes the court&#8217;s majority opinion \u200das \u200dbeing crafted to appear reasoned\u200d while actually \u2064reflecting partisanship. The author argues that the judiciary failed to acknowledge the essential issue: that disposing of Kennedy&#8217;s name from the ballot\u2064 could \u200daffect\u200b voting dynamics critical to Trump&#8217;s electoral chances in Michigan, a crucial battleground state.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, the piece condemns the current state\u2064 of the legal system as being weaponized \u200cfor\u200d political ends, with implications that such \u200bmanipulation \u200dserves to uphold partisan interests rather \u200cthan \u2062the rule of law. \u2063The article\u200d suggests that these \u2064patterns are indicative of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/independent-presidential-candidate-cornel-west-joins-anti-israel-protest-at-ucla\/\" title=\"Cornel West, an independent presidential candidate, joins UCLA protest against Israel.\">broader systemic issues<\/a> within what the author perceives \u2063as a politicized judicial framework.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>With the <a href=\"https:\/\/americanmind.org\/salvo\/criminalizing-trivialities\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">prosecutions<\/a> of former President <a href=\"https:\/\/americanmind.org\/salvo\/show-trial-american-style\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Donald Trump<\/a>, attempts to deprive <a href=\"https:\/\/americanmind.org\/salvo\/the-unpersoning-of-john-eastman\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">John Eastman of his law license<\/a>, and the absurd contempt proceedings against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-dc\/pr\/stephen-k-bannon-sentenced-four-months-prison-two-counts-contempt-congress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steve Bannon<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-dc\/pr\/ex-white-house-trade-advisor-peter-navarro-sentenced-four-months-prison-two-counts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Peter Navarro<\/a>, Americans now understand that something is <a href=\"https:\/\/americanmind.org\/salvo\/the-regime-v-america\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dreadfully wrong<\/a> with our legal system. Recently, the <a href=\"https:\/\/americanmind.org\/salvo\/the-post-constitutional-order\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ongoing destruction<\/a> of our legal system has moved to the Great Lakes State.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/conservative-professor-scores-multimillion-dollar-win-after-yearslong-battle-with-california-college\/\" title=\"Conservative Professor Scores Multimillion-Dollar Win After Yearslong Battle with California College\">legal dispute arose<\/a> after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. withdrew from the presidential race and petitioned Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to remove his name from the ballot. In a sane world, Benson would have removed Kennedy&rsquo;s name upon receipt of his petition. But <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigan.gov\/sos\/resources\/the-secretary-of-state\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Benson<\/a> is a far-left radical who fancies herself a &ldquo;guardian&rdquo; of democracy. She even wrote a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/State-Secretaries-Guardians-Democratic-Election\/dp\/0754677451\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">self-congratulatory book<\/a> to that effect. Thus, she refused.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Benson refused because she understood that if Kennedy&rsquo;s name remained on the ballot, many Michigan voters would cast a <em>meaningless<\/em> vote for him, which would help Kamala Harris. On the other hand, if Benson removed Kennedy&rsquo;s name from the ballot, many of those same voters would cast a <em>crucial vote<\/em> for Trump, whom <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/rfk-jr-trump-speech-arizona-a2638f89ddcb5de03edbe4574ca17d45\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kennedy endorsed<\/a> on Aug. 23, 2024. Since Michigan is a battleground state, this single dispute could alter the 2024 election and, by implication, the future of the United States of America.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>With Benson&rsquo;s refusal, Kennedy filed suit. The matter made its way through the Michigan state courts and ultimately to the Sixth Circuit. There, the table was set for the legal system to demonstrate its impartiality by ordering Benson to remove Kennedy&rsquo;s name from the ballot.&nbsp; Instead, the court did the opposite.<\/p>\n<h2>A Partial Court<\/h2>\n<p>The facts reveal that there was no logistical justification for Benson&rsquo;s refusal to remove Kennedy&rsquo;s name &mdash; &nbsp;it wasn&rsquo;t as though she didn&rsquo;t have time to do so. Indeed, as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov\/opinions.pdf\/24a0397n-06.pdf\">dissent re<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov\/opinions.pdf\/24a0397n-06.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">v<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov\/opinions.pdf\/24a0397n-06.pdf\">eals<\/a>, Benson initially distributed ballots <em>without <\/em>Kennedy&rsquo;s name after a lower court ruled against her. Moreover, the two Michigan <a href=\"https:\/\/legislature.mi.gov\/Laws\/MCL?objectName=MCL-168-686A\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">statutes<\/a> Benson cites in her opposition were of doubtful authority &mdash; certainly not sufficient to warrant throwing an entire national presidential election into chaos.<\/p>\n<p>Since there was no justification for Benson&rsquo;s conduct, the court resorted to legal sleight-of-hand.&nbsp; The majority opinion, drafted by Judge Eric Clay and joined by far-left activist Judge <a href=\"https:\/\/afj.org\/nominee\/rachel-s-bloomekatz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rachel Bloomekatz<\/a>, resembles all modern legal opinions. It <em>looks <\/em>like a legal opinion that does what legal opinions are supposed to do: reason from first principles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But looks can be deceiving.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In reality, the court reached its conclusion first and then backfilled it with &ldquo;reasoning.&rdquo; This is why the opinion is full of references to obscure legal principles such as<em> <\/em>res judicata, laches, and the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. The use of obscure principles to decide issues of tremendous national importance is the hallmark of a judge who made up his mind <em>first <\/em>and then groped around for legal justifications &mdash; the very opposite of what a judge is supposed to do.<\/p>\n<p>If you haven&rsquo;t heard of these legal principles, don&rsquo;t worry. They are not the right legal tools for deciding important issues like, you know, who the president of the United States should be. Instead, they are intended to make it seem like the court&rsquo;s order was the product of legal reasoning when in fact it was rank partisanship.<\/p>\n<h2>Weaponized Legal System<\/h2>\n<p>Meanwhile, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov\/opinions.pdf\/24a0397n-06.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">11-page majority opinion<\/a> never acknowledges the <em>actual <\/em>dispute: Kennedy wants Michigan&rsquo;s voters to be able to vote for Trump, the candidate Kennedy endorsed. At the same time, Benson wants to deceive voters into thinking they can vote for Kennedy. Kennedy knows that if his name is removed, Michigan&rsquo;s electoral votes could go to Trump, which could decide the national election. Benson also knows this and doesn&rsquo;t like it. Again, <em>this <\/em>is the crux of the entire legal dispute, which is odd given that the court never alludes to it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A legal system that refuses to acknowledge plain facts is not capable of delivering honest truths.&nbsp;This is what it means to have a weaponized legal system. Everybody knows what&rsquo;s happening here: the majesty of the law is providing cover for partisan politics.<\/p>\n<p>These cynical attempts to subvert our legal order are both hypocritical and routine &mdash; rule for thee but not for me is the defining ethos of woke leftism. Thus it&rsquo;s almost trite to observe that the outcome of this case would have been different had Kennedy endorsed <em>Harris<\/em>. Reasonable people know this. They also know that years of pointing out hypocrisy has revealed that leftist operatives are immune to these sorts of allegations. Their side never holds them to account.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Even so, it is hypocritical that the bureaucrats who control Michigan&rsquo;s election system want Kennedy&rsquo;s name to remain on the ballot. It was, after all, only last year when their leftist counterparts in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawfaremedia.org\/current-projects\/the-trump-trials\/section-3-litigation-tracker\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">at least 37 states<\/a> attempted to <em>remove <\/em>Trump from the ballot. In both cases, these types insist that they are saving &ldquo;our democracy&rdquo; by violating every one of its legal norms.<\/p>\n<p>The most straightforward interpretation of Benson&rsquo;s conduct is that she used the &ldquo;color of law&rdquo; (i.e., her legal authority) to disenfranchise voters who prefer Kennedy but would accept Trump. A Trump Department of Justice would be well-advised to scrutinize this conduct.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>At any rate, the Sixth Circuit&rsquo;s opinion in <em>Kennedy <\/em>is rank partisan politics dressed up in legal nonsense. It mimics the <em>form<\/em> of legal reasoning without any of its <em>substance<\/em>. In a normal country, with properly functioning legal institutions and well-trained nonpartisan judges, the opinion would have consisted of one sentence: &ldquo;Since Robert F. Kennedy is not running for president, his name shall not appear on the presidential ballot.&rdquo; That&rsquo;s what used to be known as legal reasoning.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      T.J. Harker&nbsp;is the general counsel of a Knoxville, Tennessee, company. He spent more than a decade as a federal and state prosecutor, where he investigated and tried <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/doj-russia-indictment-exists-to-associate-good-media-with-putin\/\" title=\"DOJ Russia Indictment Exists To Associate Good Media With Putin\">national white-collar frauds<\/a> and espionage matters. He writes at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tjharker.com\/\">Amicus Republicae<\/a>&nbsp;on Substack.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recent legal actions against Trump and others reveal issues in our justice system<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3436,"featured_media":2352454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/2048px-Informed-_Conversations_on_Democracy_in_the_Digital_Age_-_1A0A8301_52529943957-e1728334267279.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[7386,4601,32458],"class_list":["post-2352453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-ballot","tag-michigan","tag-rfk-jr"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/2048px-Informed-_Conversations_on_Democracy_in_the_Digital_Age_-_1A0A8301_52529943957-e1728334267279.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3436"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2352453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2352454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2352453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2352453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2352453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}