Former President Donald Trump has refused to sign an optional oath that he will not “advocate the overthrow of the government” ahead of the 2024 election, according to an analysis from radio station WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times on Saturday.
Trump is the current frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, and since his 2016 successful run, the former president has maintained a loyal base known as MAGA from his campaign slogan, Make America Great Again.
During Trump’s bid for president in 2016 and again in 2020, the MAGA leader signed a loyalty oath document and submitted it to Illinois election authorities. However, this time around, Trump did not sign the document. The oath, which political candidates in Illinois have been signing for over 50 years comes from a Cold-Era law that was made non-mandatory in the 1970s.
The oath, which is a pledge of allegiance to the U.S. government and state of Illinois, is not required, but it is a tradition when presidential candidates turn in their nominating petitions to the Illinois State Board of Elections for the state’s primary held on March 19.
In part of the oath, candidates declare that they are not communists nor affiliated with communist organizations and in another part, which is more applicable to today, candidates swear that they “do not directly or indirectly teach or advocate the overthrow of the government of the United States or of this state or any unlawful change in the form of the governments thereof by force or any unlawful means.”
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President Joe Biden and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican 2024 presidential candidate, signed the oath, according to WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times. Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor, did not sign the oath.
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign via email for additional information.
Reacting to the news that Trump did not sign the oath, Biden posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday, “I said Donald Trump is willing to sacrifice our democracy to put himself in power. I wasn’t exaggerating.”
Former Representative Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who sat on the House select committee that investigated the events surrounding the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, questioned Trump’s motives for not pledging to uphold the loyal oath.
“Why wouldn’t he sign it?” he asked the Chicago Sun-Times. “Has he been advised maybe not to sign it because maybe there’s some legal exposures…given that oath, if he signed it, would be a violation of everything he actually did on Jan. 6th, 2021, and leading up to it?”
Meanwhile, Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker wrote on X on Saturday, “Pledging not to overthrow our democracy is a hard thing to do when you’ve already attempted it once.”
Newsweek also reached out to Kinzinger’s political action committee, Country First, via online form. Pritzker’s office told Newsweek it did not have a comment on the governor’s comments from his political X account.
Three years ago today, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., to stop the certification of Biden’s 2020 election win. The riot erupted after Trump repeatedly made false claims that the election was stolen from him via widespread voter fraud. The former president, meanwhile, has denied taking part in an insurrection.
Later that day, Pritzker called for Trump to be impeached for his role in the riot. When Trump was impeached for incitement of insurrection a week later, Kinzinger was one of only 10 Republicans to vote for impeachment. However, the former president was later acquitted by the Senate.
Trump is currently facing federal charges for his actions surrounding the riot. In August 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted the former president on four federal felony counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has claimed that the case is politically motivated.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.