Just a few days before the presidential primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday, a judge threw out yet another challenge to former President Donald Trump’s eligibility to appear on the state’s ballot.
Trump attorney Harmeet Dhillon announced the legal victory in a post to X late Friday evening.
“Breaking! Our firm @dhillonlaw, working with local counsel, defeated the attempt to keep @realDonaldTrump off the ballot in New Hampshire!” she wrote in the post. “Done deal! Congrats to the election litigation team yet again!”
💥 Breaking! Our firm @dhillonlaw, working with local counsel, defeated the attempt to keep @realDonaldTrump off the ballot in New Hampshire! Done deal! 🎤 Congrats to the election litigation team yet again! pic.twitter.com/GN0MKeU715
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) January 20, 2024
Trending:
Trump, 77, appeared at a rally in New Hampshire on Friday, accompanied by two other prominent Republicans who have been named as possible contenders for the vice presidency in a second Trump administration.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, said by some to be the leading candidate for the role, told the rally crowd that she’d be “honored to serve in a future Trump administration,” according to WMUR — a sentiment she has expressed numerous times recently.
“I’ve been proud to be the strongest supported and the first member of Congress to endorse him,” the New York Republican added.
Also present was South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who took the opportunity to endorse Trump’s candidacy for the first time.
Will Trump win the GOP nomination?
“We need a president today who will stop the crime and recklessness in the streets,” Scott said at the rally, according to the outlet. “We need a president to restore law and order; we need Donald Trump.”
Scott had launched his own long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination, but withdrew from the race in November, saying then that he wouldn’t endorse any of the other candidates.
Obviously, he has since changed his mind and endorsed Trump over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, despite hailing from the same state as her.
The challenge to Trump’s ballot eligibility was thrown out only nine days after it had been filed by John Anthony Castro on the same day that Castro was arrested for 33 counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation and presentation of a false a fraudulent federal tax return.
A conviction on each of those counts can lead to up to three years in prison, according to The New York Times, meaning Castro is looking at a possible 99-year sentence if convicted on all charges.
Castro has a law degree but no license to practice law, the Times reported. He has filed to run for the presidency himself, and his campaign had raised a total of $678 through September.
“[H]e has not emerged as a serious challenger to the leading Republican candidates,” the outlet reported.
He has filed lawsuits in at least 27 states arguing that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars Trump from serving as president because he allegedly “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” on Jan. 6, 2021.
Most of those suits have been tossed out, the Times said, and “none of them have gained significant traction.”
