Top New Hampshire election official says he has no legal basis for keeping Trump off the ballot

New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan said Wednesday that there is no legal basis for keeping former President Donald Trump off the ballot in the first-in-the-nation primary.

“There is no mention in New Hampshire state statute that a candidate in a new presidential primary can be disqualified using the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution referencing insurrection or rebellion,” Scanlan, a Republican, said during a news conference Wednesday morning. “Similarly, there is nothing in the 14th Amendment that suggests that exercising the provisions of that amendment should take place during the delegate selection process held by the different states.”

Scanlan’s comments come a day after Trump, the current front-runner in the Republican primary, sent a letter to Scanlan's office signed by dozens of GOP lawmakers, including New Hampshire state House and Senate leaders.

“President Donald J. Trump is once again at the forefront of political attacks, this time by those who are attempting to disqualify the former President from appearing on New Hampshire's primary ballot by weaponizing Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment against him,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. “There is no legal basis for these claims to hold up in any legitimate court of law. The opinions of those perpetuating this fraud against the will of the people are nothing more than a blatant attempt to affront democracy and disenfranchise all voters and the former President.”

In New Hampshire and in states across the country, some legal scholars and Trump critics have argued the former president should be disqualified from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars those who’ve taken an oath to support the Constitution from holding office again if they’ve “engaged in insurrection” against the United States or “given aid or comfort” to its enemies.

Late last month, Scanlan's office announced they would be “carefully reviewing the legal issues involved” in the long-shot attempt to keep Trump off the ballot in the first-in-the-nation primary state.

The efforts in New Hampshire have been led in part by Bryant “Corky” Messner — an attorney and prominent Republican who ran on Trump’s endorsement as the state’s 2020 U.S. Senate nominee. But other Republicans in the state aren't backing it.

“I don’t think the effort to limit the options for our primary voters has any legs whatsoever,” Chris Ager, chair of the state Republican Party, told POLITICO last month.

Scanlan is just the latest secretary of state to shut those theories down. Several Democratic secretaries of state have also pushed back against the idea that they have the power to deploy the largely untested legal theory.

On Wednesday, Scanlan also announced that the primary filing period for candidates will be Oct. 11-27.