(LifeSiteNews) — A Republican who is only running for president to file legal challenges against Donald Trump has lost yet another federal court case.
Nevada District Court Judge Gloria Navarro tossed a lawsuit from John Anthony Castro that sought to keep Trump off the presidential ballot by claiming he was guilty of an “insurrection.”
Judge Navarro ruled Castro lacked standing and noted he publicly admitted he was only running so he could try to get Trump booted off the ballot. Castro claimed an “injury” that gave him standing, because he said he would receive more votes if Trump was taken off of the ballot, though he is not registering support in polls.
He also, as Navarro wrote, has lost at least five other lawsuits making similar claims.
However, other attempts by leftist activists to interfere in the 2024 election by preventing Republicans from having a chance to vote for Trump have succeeded. Colorado and Maine have both removed Trump from the 2024 primary ballot (and by extension, prohibited him from appearing on a general election ballot).
The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments about the issue on February 8, as previously reported by LifeSiteNews.
The legal theory is that Trump is guilty of an “insurrection” because of his actions on January 6, 2021 (even though he never engaged in any armed rebellion, he was the sitting president, and he specifically told people to be peaceful).
The theory has been boosted by left-wing legal professors (and several Federalist Society-affiliated professors) as well as libertarian law professor Ilya Somin, who cheered the decision to keep Trump off the ballot.
“I hope US Supreme Court will affirm,” Somin wrote on December 19 last year, in reference to the Colorado court decision.
However, the insurrection theory has drawn criticism from legal scholar Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University, who compared it to an urban legend.
“Constitutional urban legends often have an even more immediate appeal and tend to arise out of the desperation of divided times. One of the most popular today is that former President Donald Trump can be barred from office, even if he is not convicted in any of the four indictments he faces, under a long-dormant clause of the 14th Amendment,” he previously wrote for the Hill.
“Sulking in the Oval Office does not make Trump a seditionist. Indeed, despite formal articles of the second impeachment and years of experts insisting that Trump was guilty of incitement and insurrection, Special Counsel Jack Smith notably did not charge him with any such crime” Turley noted.
“The reason is obvious. The evidence and constitutional standards would not have supported a charge of incitement or insurrection. Yet these experts still believe that Trump can be barred from office without any such charge even being brought, let alone a conviction,” Turley wrote.
Even U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a far-leftist, has said Trump should remain on the ballot, during a recent interview with a local news outlet.
While she said it is “pretty clear” that the former president “participated in an insurrection,” she said she “wants to see it resolved at the ballot box,” so as not to raise questions about the “legitimacy” of the 2024 election.