Update (Dec. 30, 3:45 p.m.) Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said on Saturday afternoon that her home had been the target of a ‘swatting’ incident the night before. A police spokesperson said that authorities received a call in which a man claimed he had broken into Bellows’ home; when they arrived, neither Bellows’ family nor the caller were present, NBC News reports. Bellows wrote in a Facebook post that she was away for the long weekend. “These dehumanizing images and threatening communications directed at me and people I love are dangerous,” she added.
Maine became the second state to disqualify Donald Trump from the ballot after Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Thursday deemed him ineligible to stand for office. The decision has exposed Bellows to threats of impeachment by Republicans in the state and, following a now-predictable pattern, threats against her and her staff.
The Associated Press reported on Friday that Republican state Rep. John Andrews has written to the Maine Revisor’s Office to initiate impeachment proceedings against Bellows, a Democrat. Andrews, who is a member of the Maine Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee, which oversees Bellows’ office and state elections, accused her of making a partisan decision “so that she can jockey for position in the 2026 Democrat Primary for Governor.”
Bellows said that she and her staff have also received threats in the wake of the Thursday decision. In a move that experts have said encourages threats against his targets, Trump posted a link on Truth Social to Bellows’ government bio.
“Those threatening communications are truly unacceptable,” Bellows told CNN on Friday. “I certainly worry about the safety of people that I love, people around me, and people who are charged with protecting me and working alongside me.”
Bellows is experiencing this backlash in part because the legal theory behind these 14th Amendment challenges has simply never been tested against a presidential candidate before now, let alone decided on by a single official. And as secretary of state, Bellows is selected by the Maine Legislature, which Democrats control — further fueling accusations of bias in the current hyperpartisan state of politics. But even in Colorado, where the state Supreme Court ruled that Trump was disqualified from office because he engaged in an insurrection, the justices have been subjected to violent threats on social media. The FBI and the Denver police are now investigating a number of those threats. Bellows’ decision is pending an expected appeal to the state Superior Court. But she said her decision was made in accordance with the law. “We are a nation of laws,” she told CNN. “Maine law required me to hold a hearing and issue a decision, and now it goes to the Superior Court. And I will uphold the ruling of the court — that is the process that we are due.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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