I’m sure you’ve heard by now the Democrats are making a desperate, not-so-democratic attempt to get former President Donald Trump kicked off the ballot in a number of state primaries and general elections. This week marks another major failure in that attempt.
Introducing Texan and Republican presidential candidate himself, John Anthony Castro.
If you’ve heard the name, it’s probably not because he’s a GOP candidate in his own right. He doesn’t even make it on any possible list of winners, primary or otherwise.
Instead, if you’ve heard of him, it’s likely because he is one of several individuals and groups trying very hard to make sure that Trump doesn’t win or even make it on a number of state ballots in 2024.
Casto’s first attempt was in the Supreme Court, where they quickly threw his case out, declining to even hear it.
So, he took his case to various states. In fact, he’s filed over two dozen challenges so far to Trump’s supposedly questionable ballot eligibility, according to The Hill.
Naturally, his case is similar to the ones recently won in Colorado and Maine, that Trump is no longer eligible to run based on his words and actions in January 2021 in which he supposedly “engaged in insurrection,” a direct violation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
81% of Democrats think President Trump’s name should be removed from the ballot.
Thought they were the “pro-Democracy” party?
Because nothing says “democracy” more than kicking someone off the ballot.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) January 9, 2024
But unlike those in Colorado and Maine, all of Castro’s have thus far been thrown out.
In fact, 11 have been tossed so far, with the latest being in Florida, New Hampshire, and Nevada.
As Nevada’s US District Court Judge Gloria M. Navarro ruled on Monday, it’s not the case may not have certain merits, as it is “of significant interest to the American people.” However, the fault lies with Castro himself.
JUST IN: Lawsuit Seeking to REMOVE TRUMP FROM THE BALLOT in Nevada Dismissed..
ARE THESE POLITICAL PERSECUTIONS HELPING OR HURTING TRUMP?
"Today’s dismissal of another BOGUS, bad-faith, Crooked Joe Biden-engineered attempt to deprive Americans as a whole, and the voters of… pic.twitter.com/Pn5mtEioyv
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) January 10, 2024
Navarro, who then-President Barack Obama appointed, wrote, “The court finds that Castro lacks standing, and the Court therefore lacks jurisdiction to hear this case.”
Why does Castro lack standing? Well, for starters he himself is a presidential candidate, clearly opposing a Trump win. And that makes this more of a politically motivated argument than a legal one.
Secondly, “Castro improperly manufactured his standing merely to file this lawsuit.”
And this is precisely why Castro’s New Hampshire case also fell apart. As that case ruled, “evidence indicates that Castro is creating his own injury in order to manufacture standing to challenge Trump’s eligibility to run for president.” He even admitted that his sole reason for being a candidate was to “show the impermissibility of Trump’s presidency.”
And lastly, the Nevada ruling points out that Trump and Castro technically aren’t even competing. Trump is running in the state’s GOP caucus. Castro, on the other hand, is running in the Nevada Republican Party’s primary.
All of this is to say, once again, that Castro “does not have standing to challenge Trump’s eligibility to run for president.”
As I said, that took place on Monday.
Tuesday, the same man, John Anthony Castro, was arrested on multiple tax fraud charges.
As The Hill reported, Castro was arrested and indicted on federal charges relating to an online tax business where he supposedly lied to the IRS to get bigger tax refunds for his customers and take part in those profits.
He is accused of filing no less than 17 fraudulent tax documents for various clients from 2018 to 2020, all without their knowledge. This results in 33 counts of aiding the preparation of false tax returns.
Court documents allege that Castro promised his clients much higher returns than other preparers could offer. And on several occasions, he “offered to split the additional refund with taxpayers.”
Mostly, he got these higher refunds by generating false deductions, some to the tune of $30,000.
While Castro admits that he did, in fact, have a hand in the false tax documents, he claims this case against him is “political retaliation” for the cases he’s brought against Trump.
As he told The Hill, “This is going trial. I am going to convince all 12 jurors that I am 100 percent innocent and that this is political retaliation.”
Yeah, good luck with that. And good luck getting Trump kicked off any more ballots.
