So at 8:20 AM (Feb 8th, 2024) I said this on my Facebook:
UPDATE!
The rest of the original post….
Here is some later discussion of this:
‘Parade Of Horribles’: Johnathan Turley Skewers Colorado Lawyer After SCOTUS Ballot Hearing on Thursday
Of course the Democrats think they are “saving Democracy”. In fact, Joe Biden says “Democracy is on the ballot!” As he tries to remove the #1 opposition to him from the ballot. Also, Democrats are trying more removals as well based on theories that the authors had zero intent for the use of:
….It’s only the latest effort targeting congressional candidates as Democrats seek to bar opponents as “insurrectionists” for questioning the election of President Biden.
We have become a nation of Madame Defarges — eagerly knitting names of those to be subject to arbitrary justice.
Former congressional candidate Gene Stilp, who’s previously made headlines by burning MAGA flags with swastikas outside courthouses, filed the challenge.
Using the 14th Amendment to disqualify candidates like Perry is consistent with Stilp’s signature flag-burning stunts.
But what’s chilling is how many support such efforts, including Democratic officeholders from Maine’s Secretary of State to dozens of members of Congress.
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) sought to bar 126 members of Congress under the same theory for challenging the election before Jan. 6, 2021.
Similar legislation from Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) to disqualify members got 63 co-sponsors, all Democrats, including New York Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman and Ritchie Torres and “Squad” members Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
When Maine’s secretary of state disqualified Trump, three in the state’s congressional delegation — Sens. Angus King (I) and Susan Collins (R) and Rep. Jared Golden (D) — condemned the decision. But others supported the antidemocratic action.
The grounds were virtually identical to those of Stilp. He accuses Perry of supporting challenges to Biden’s election and opposing its certification.
Of course, he ignores Democratic members who sought to block certification of Republican presidents under the very same law with no factual or legal basis.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) praised the effort then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) organized to challenge the certification of President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election.
Jan. 6 committee head Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) voted to challenge it in the House.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sought to block certification of the 2016 election result — particularly ironic since he’s a leading voice calling for Trump to be disqualified.
He insisted last week on CNN that the effort to prevent citizens from voting for Trump is the very embodiment of democracy: “If you think about it, of all of the forms of disqualification that we have, the one that disqualifies people for engaging in insurrection is the most democratic because it’s the one where people choose themselves to be disqualified.”
That is akin to treating every criminal charge as a consensual act of incarceration because the accused chose his path in life.
This is also being played out in state races.
The filing against Perry came the same day Pennsylvania Democratic state Sen. Art Haywood made public a complaint to the Senate Ethics Committee against his Republican colleague Doug Mastriano accusing him of playing a role in the plot to overturn the election.
Notably, in his effort to “hold insurrectionists accountable,” Haywood admitted he relied on the same evidence from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington that was used in the Colorado case.
“Insurrectionist” is the newest label to excuse any abuse.
During the McCarthy period, individuals were accused of being Communists or “fellow travelers.”
Now you have Stilp accusing Perry of being “supportive of insurrectionists.”
Democrats and pundits have claimed civil libertarians and journalists who have testified against the government’s growing censorship efforts are enablers of insurrectionists and even “Putin lovers.”
These Democratic members and activists vividly demonstrated the dangerous implications of this unfounded theory.
Figures like Stilp are wrong on the law but right about one thing: There are few real limits once you embrace this theory.
[….]With the support of elected officials across the country, they can then join Stilp in moving from burning flags to torching the Constitution in a fit of exhilarating rage.
(JONATHAN TURLEY | hat-tip to OFF THE PRESS)
Yep. 126… you read that right.
This is a radical, radical party. Turley’s title to the article above is:
It is ironic – almost – that the Democrat Party were trying to “cleanse” the voting rolls through the founding the KKK. They tried to cleanse the human race through eugenics. As well as their current goal of trying to cleanse thought through DEI.
In fact, Democrats as a whole are impartial to this ridding themselves of competition. You see it in business with “crony corporatism,” you see it in the electorate (as this post notes), and the like. In yesterdays post I noted a “slightly dated” article in the ATLANTIC (see more in my first post on this 14th Amendment “witch hunt”), where David Frum said this:
Consider the scenario in which Section 3 is invoked against Trump in 2024. Although he has won the Republican nomination, Democratic secretaries of state in key states refuse to place his name on their ballots, as a person who engaged in insurrection against the United States. With Trump’s name deleted from some swing-state ballots, President Joe Biden is easily reelected.
But only kind of reelected. How in the world are Republicans likely to react to such an outcome? Will any of them regard such a victory as legitimate? The rage and chaos that would follow are beyond imagining.
And then what? If Section 3 can be reactivated in this way, then reactivated it will be. Republicans will hunt for Democrats to disqualify, and not only for president, but for any race where Democrats present someone who said or did something that can be represented as “aid and comfort” to enemies of the United States. Didn’t progressive Representative Ilhan Omar once seemingly equate al-Qaeda with the U.S. military? Do we think that her political enemies will accept that she was making only a stupid rhetorical point? Earlier this year, Tennessee Republicans tossed out of the legislature two Black Democrats for allegedly violating House rules. Might Tennessee Republicans next deem unruly Democrats “rebels” forbidden ever to run for office again?
What are red states doing in case of a successful removal of Trump from their ballots disenfranchising voters choice?
As I showed yesterday: “States Starting To Move To Remove Biden from Ballot (Tit-4-Tat)“
Where do the regular Democrat voter position themselves in all this? RED STATE has an article answering that:
Ever since Donald Trump came down the golden escalator in 2015, Democrats have been shrieking about how he is a “danger to democracy” and how MAGA threatens the very foundations of our republic. Listen to President Joe Biden Friday angrily rail on about how Trump wants to destroy America as we know it.
But in the real world, it appears that most Democrats don’t truly believe in democracy, or at least how it’s actually supposed to work. A new CBS News/YouGov poll shows that an astonishing 81 percent of Dems think that Trump’s name should be removed from ballots this presidential election, presumably because they think he’s guilty of violating the 14th Amendment by inciting an insurrection on J6.
[…]
[…]
The former president has neither been charged with nor convicted of insurrection, so how could they possibly think that his name should be removed? Quite simply, they want to win, and win at any cost, and they don’t care about what damage it does to our system.
The Supreme Court will decide in short order on cases in Maine and Colorado about the efforts to remove Trump’s name from the GOP primary ballot.
[….]
However, one question I don’t see is, “Why do you consider our democracy to be threatened?” Since it’s a CBS poll, you can assume that they thought everyone who felt it was threatened thought Donald J. Trump was the reason behind their concern. But the reality is, a large number of that 70 percent is likely voters like me, who consider the tyrannical current president, his corrupt, weaponized Department of Justice, and people like the 81 percent who think a presidential candidate should be taken off ballots simply because they don’t like him represent the true threats to our republic.
This is brilliant #DementiaHitler pic.twitter.com/fSeHphd6zd
— Prince Charming (@TheAlmightyKek) January 7, 2024
I warned you via David Frum back on August 29, 2023, when I quoted the Atlantic piece:
ALAN DERSHOWITZ MAKES THE PROPHECY 2-WEEKS AGO:
RPT’S “thinking”: You play stupid games; you get stupid prizes!
The GOP should counter Dems craziness with Dem craziness!
Tit for Tat!
Here is more from ACE OF SPADES post titled “Republicans Threaten to Throw Biden Off the Ballot in Missouri… and Florida“
[BTW… THE VIDEO WITH RON DESANTIS BELOW IS BY CNN, WHO THINKS
THIS IS SOME KINDA RESPONSE I GATHER? IT MERELY CONFIRMS]
The left is rigging the election on the pretext claim that Trump tried (and failed) to rig one first. Or rather, the claim that he attempted to un-rig the 2020 election that they had worked so hard to “fortify.”
Republicans are calling for President Joe Biden to be removed from the 2024 primary ballot as former President Donald Trump is facing challenges to remove him from ballots in multiple states.
As challenges are brought to disqualify Trump from 2024 GOP primary ballots in more than 30 states for allegedly instigating an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, Republicans are suggesting that Biden should be removed from the ballot in response, but because of the increased volume of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. through the southern border.
The challenges against Trump have been made under the insurrection clauses of the 14th Amendment, a Civil War-era amendment that hasn’t previously been used to disqualify a presidential candidate, Axios reported. The insurrection clauses do not specify whether a criminal conviction is necessary as a prerequisite. There have been candidates — albeit on the fringes — who have appeared on presidential ballots despite criminal convictions. Lyndon LaRouche ran his 1992 campaign from behind prison bars after a fraud conviction, and more famously, Eugene V. Debs ran his 1920 campaign from prison after being convicted of sedition. He garnered nearly a million votes.
[….]
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R), who is running for governor, posted on X on Friday following the Supreme Court taking up the Colorado appeal, saying the same standard should be applied to Biden as Trump.
“What has happened in Colorado & Maine is disgraceful & undermines our republic,” Ashcroft wrote. “While I expect the Supreme Court to overturn this, if not, Secretaries of State will step in & ensure the new legal standard for @realDonaldTrump applies equally to @JoeBiden!”
Missouri state Sen. Bill Eigel (R), who is also running for governor, announced on Friday that he plans to introduce legislation that would disqualify Biden from the Missouri ballot.
“By the Democrats’ own standard, Joe Biden should be immediately disqualified and removed from the ballot for the ‘aid and comfort’ he has given our enemies,” Eigel said in a press release, citing the treason clause in Article III of the U.S. Constitution.
“Our country is being invaded, because Joe Biden has swung our southern border wide open. President Biden has allowed more than 8 million people to stroll across our border illegally, causing more harm to this country than any other president in American history,” the state senator continued.
[….]
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is running in the GOP presidential primary race against Trump, said on Friday that he’s looking at blocking Biden from the ballot.
“This is just going to be a tit for tat and it’s just not gonna end well,” DeSantis said. “You could make a case — and I’m actually looking at this in Florida now — could we make a credible case” to block Biden from the ballot “because of the invasion of 8 million. And again, I don’t think that’s the right way to do it.”
[….]
Last month, following Colorado removing Trump from the ballot, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) also suggested that Biden be removed from the ballot.
“Seeing what happened in Colorado tonight … makes me think — except we believe in democracy in Texas — maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing 8 million people to cross the border since he’s been president, disrupting our state far more than anything anyone else has done in recent history,” Patrick said.
[….]
Despite the claims of the Democrat-Media Junta that Trump planned to join “his troops” at the Capitol and seize power, just-released Secret Service documents show he never had any plan to go to the Capitol at all.
It has become one of the enduring messages of the House Democrats’ final report on the Jan. 6 riot: Donald Trump had a plan and an intention to go directly to the U.S. Capitol to join those disrupting the certification of the 2020 election results.
“The Committee’s principal concern was that the President actually intended to participate personally in the January 6th efforts at the Capitol, leading the attempt to overturn the election either from inside the House Chamber, from a stage outside the Capitol, or otherwise,” the committee wrote in its final report in December, 2022.
“The Committee regarded those facts as important because they are relevant to President Trump’s intent on January 6th. There is no question from all the evidence assembled that President Trump did have that intent,” it added.
Lawmakers, pundits and journalists have all echoed that line in the months before and after the report’s release.
“I imagine that he thought that he would enter like Mussolini being carried on the shoulders of his supporters and enter the Capitol,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said, comparing Trump to Italy’s fascist leader during World War II.
In his speech at Valley Forge on Friday reviving his argument that Trump and MAGA supporters pose a threat to democracy, President Joe Biden pointedly avoided making the claim. In fact, he took the opposite tact and suggested a cowardly Trump declined to join his supporters storming the Capitol.
“He promised he would right them — right them. Everything they did, he would be side by side with them. Then, as usual, he left the dirty work to others. He retreated to the White House,” Biden said.
Such conflicting portrayals may be confusing to voters. That confusion is also rooted in an undisputed fact: Trump never actually went to the Capitol after his speech on the Ellipse.
The House Democrats’ claims are based on two pieces of testimony. Some Trump aides recalled to the committee the 45th president mentioning in a meeting on Jan, 4, 2021, that he might want to go to the Capitol.
And then former aide Cassidy Hutchinson
The Democratic Party’s narrative is further undercut by internal Secret Service documents reviewed by Just the News, which show there was no plan heading into the Jan. 6 event to take Trump to the Capitol.
He didn’t go, and there was never a plan to go.
But the media which will get you deplatformed for “misinformation” continues lying, claiming he was going to cross the Mall like it was the Rubicon and crown himself as emperor.
The CNN video was funny in it’s disconnect…
want more non-self auditing?
AOC PROJECTS
Kayleigh McEnany, a former White House press secretary in the Trump administration, tore into the Colorado Supreme Court over its recent decision. [….] McEnany, who was guest hosting “The Ingraham Angle,” spoke with former Deputy Independent Counsel Sol Wisenberg about the left’s shameless attempt to delegitimize the Supreme Court.
Mr. Wisenberg is no fan of “The Don,” however, his analysis is a recent addition to the Colorado Upper Court’s ruling. This is from CONSERVATIVE BRIEF and the transcript can be found on their site.
A bit of a bio on Solomon Wisenberg via WIKI:
(UPDATED BELOW)
NATIONAL REVIEW discusses the options in front of the courts… but remember, another way (split the horns Plato) is available. One site says “CHECKMATE” regarding this option. More below.
Chris Christie is no fan of Trump, yet, he can see the main issue at hand:
Christie
Jonathan Turley notes the following on TWITTER:
The Colorado Supreme Court has handed down the most anti-democratic opinion in decades. Yet, these justices barred voters from [voting] for their preferred candidate in the name of democracy. It is like burning down a house in the name of fire safety.
[….]
The Colorado Supreme Court has issued an unsigned opinion disqualifying Trump from the ballot: “The sum of these parts is this: President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three; because he is disqualified.” …
…This ends a string of losses for advocates of this dangerous novel theory. They finally found a court that would embrace what the court admits is a case of “first impression.” My first impression remains that same. The court is dead wrong in my view…
…It is striking that the court relies on Schenck v. U.S., where the Court upheld the denial of core free speech rights of a socialist opposing a war. The opinion of the Colorado Supreme Court is so sweeping that it would allow for tit-for-tat removals of candidates from ballots….
…The opinion is remarkable in how the four justices adopted the most sweeping interpretations to get over each barrier. The result is lack of a limiting principle. I view the opinion as strikingly anti-democratic in what it now allows states to do in blue and red states alike.
[….]
James Freeman Clarke once said “a politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation.” It is time for President Joe Biden to show that he can think of the next generation and oppose this insidious ruling.
[….]
Much can be said about this decision, but restraint is not one of them. The four Colorado justices had to adopt the most sweeping interpretation on every key element. The only narrow part of the opinion came with the interpretation of the First Amendment.
In a very truncated clip from a longer video via Bannon’s War Room, Alan Dershowitz says the following:
Dershowitz
TRANSCRIPT:
Even people like me, who would welcome the loss – on political grounds, wouldn’t accept it on Constitutional grounds, because this is about the most dangerous, worst, and…
um, unconstitutional decision I’ve read in my 60 years of teaching and practicing criminal law.
This is a power grab.
In violation of the specific words of the 14th amendment, you couldn’t be clearer when the 14th amendment allocates the power to enforce this provision.
Having the States do this? On an individual basis is (a) absurd under contemporary law. And as well, the idea that the framers of the 14th amendment, radical Reconstructionists, would allocate to Mississippi and Alabama… ahh… the right to decide who’s on the ballot, ah, just defies any kind of historical understanding.
POWERLINE has a decent update to their article expanding where the case may weave it way to:
UPDATE: A number of readers have wondered why I said the Supreme Court is unlikely to intervene. On reflection, that was an offhand comment that was not thoroughly thought through. There were two reasons for it:
First, the Republican majority on the Court is highly reluctant to wade into waters that are seen as political. Ruling in Trump’s favor would use up a large share of the Court’s diminished political capital, and Trump is hardly the person on whom the justices want to expend that precious commodity. On the other hand, the application of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is a federal question that is squarely presented by this case and may not be easy to duck.
Second, the Court would need to act fast, as the primary season is nearly upon us. Normally, litigating any case in the Supreme Court takes time. I assume the Court would want to hear from a number of parties and would want extensive briefing. On a normal calendar, I don’t think there is enough time for that to happen. On the other hand, the Court can act more quickly if it wants to, and if it is willing to expend, in this case, the necessary political capital. So it could be possible.
A friend who is a very good lawyer writes:
I suspect that in fact the Supreme Court will immediately grant an emergency appeal and will rule 9-0, or 8-1 if Justice Jackson wants to be her usual moronic self, to overturn the Colorado decision. I imagine that every justice on the Supreme Court understands the implications of the decision, which would mean that any partisan state court could take the other party’s candidate off the ballot. So I will be shocked if they don’t feel the urgency to settle this once and for all. In fact, there has to be a lot of concern about the partisan turn of the courts in general.
I hope my friend is correct. I would only note that in the minds of many voters, the “partisan turn” of the courts is in our direction under the current Court–something to which the justices are acutely sensitive. And for the Democratic justices to renounce partisanship by voting in a way that is good for America but bad for the Democrats, in a high-profile, politically-charged case, is theoretically possible, but I am not sure there is any precedent for it.
FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE UPDATE!
The “Insurrection Clause” Doesn’t Apply Without a Declaration of Insurrection:
Colorado judges don’t get to declare that there was a federal insurrection.
[….]
For the “insurrection clause” to apply, there has to be an insurrection. That means there has to be a declaration of insurrection.
Congress and the Lincoln administration both defined and declared an insurrection. There’s been no declaration now which means, legally speaking, there’s no insurrection and therefore no insurrection clause applies.
The 14th is still a legal minefield in this regard and the ability of a president to claim insurrection is in theory an open-ended nightmare. Biden could, for example, hypothetically declare that an insurrection is underway, but he hasn’t so the point is null.
Colorado judges, random uninvolved state legislatures and Uncle Bob do not get to define an insurrection against federal authority. Only federal authorities get to declare an insurrection. Neither Trump nor Biden declared one of those.
New York, for example, could not unilaterally decide that Confederate states were in a state of insurrection. But that is what Colorado is trying to do here. States ought to usurp federal authority more often, but this is a blatantly illegal usurpation.
And the factual forest should not be lost for the legalistic trees.
Other States To Use Colorado Ruling
Of course, as other states try ta do this using the Colorado “ruling,” …. which RED STATE notes:
California’s Lieutenant Governor, Eleni Kounalakis, has sent a memo to the California Secretary of State, Shirley Weber, seeking to have Donald Trump removed from California’s primary ballot.
[….]
The memo states in part:
Specifically, the Colorado Supreme Court held in Anderson v. Griswold (2023 CO 63) that Trump’s insurrection disqualifies him under section three of the Fourteenth Amendment to stand for presidential re-election. Because the candidate is ineligible, the court ruled, it would be a “wrongful act” for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on that state’s presidential primary ballot.
That’s wrong. It’s so wrong it’s not even in the same time zone as right. The entire argument here is based on nothing more than raw assertion: “Donald Trump is guilty of insurrection because of course he is.”….
routing the courts by caucusing trump
Of course, if this ruling is allowed to stand and the real SUPES don’t fix it, there are other ways to vote for voters to express their God-Given ability for freedom (RED STATE):
…As I predicted to my oldest son when the decision dropped Tuesday night, there’s one remedy the Republican Party can use to avoid all of this expensive and time-consuming lawfare completely. To its credit, the Colorado Republican Party almost immediately said that they would invoke it.
That remedy: Switch to a caucus to determine the party’s nominee….
CHECKMATE!
THE FEDERALIST has an article again noting what my last three topics (first, second, and third posts) regarding the issue are: “the President is not included in the 14th Amendment.”
The Minnesota Supreme Court and the Michigan Court of Claims threw out challenges attempting to strike former President Donald Trump’s name from 2024 presidential primary election ballots. However, the courts left open the possibility of his removal from general presidential election ballots. Similar cases are pending across the country, and a decision is expected to be made today in a Colorado lawsuit.
The lawsuits, brought by leftist activist organizations, argue that because Trump was giving a speech to his supporters near the White House while protesters flooded the Capitol in a supposed “insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualifies him from appearing on ballots.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment reads:
“No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States … who, having previously taken an oath … as an officer of the United States … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
There are several issues with the lawsuits attempting to brazenly interfere in the next presidential election, starting with the fact that Trump did not “engage in an insurrection or rebellion.” No federal court has convicted Trump of such a thing. Moreover, the Senate acquitted Trump of the second impeachment resolution, which charged him with “Incitement of Insurrection.”
According to Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, there is also “a serious question of whether the disqualification provision of Section 3 even still exists as a constitutional matter.” As Spakovsky explained, “Section 3 gives Congress the ability to remove the disqualification provision and void Section 3 by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress,” and in 1872 and 1898, “Congress did just that” by passing two Amnesty Acts.
In Minnesota, the state Supreme Court refused to even consider Trump’s removal from the general election ballots because the issue is “neither ripe, nor is it ‘about to occur.’” Indeed, no one technically knows whether Trump will win the Republican primary and therefore be eligible to appear on general election ballots.
As for the primary election, the court concluded Section 3 is irrelevant. “[T]his is an internal party election to serve internal party purposes,” stated the court, “And there is no state statute that prohibits a major political party from placing on the presidential nomination primary ballot, or sending delegates to the national convention supporting, a candidate who is ineligible to hold office.”
However, the court did leave open the possibility of Trump’s disqualification in the general election if he wins the primary.
In Michigan, state Court of Claims Judge James Redford ruled that Trump could not be removed from primary ballots because the primaries are an internal political party affair. Like in Minnesota, Redford left the door open for Trump’s removal from the general election, but he also strongly suggested that no court can rule on Trump’s eligibility in the general election because that decision should be left up to Congress.
“The questions involved are by their nature political,” Redford wrote. “It takes the decision of whether there was a rebellion or insurrection and whether or not someone participated in it from the Congress, a body made up of elected representatives of the people of every state in the nation, and gives it to but one single judicial officer, a person who no matter how well intentioned, evenhanded, fair and learned, cannot in any manner or form possibly embody the represented qualities of every citizen of the nation—as does the House of Representatives and the Senate.”
[….]
Legal experts predict that this boldest ploy yet to interfere in a presidential election will likely reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
JUST THE NEWS notes the same at the end of their article: “Activist group Free Speech for People has since asked the Wolverine State’s top bench to intervene.”
RED STATE shows the Judge involved believes Trump met the rules for the 14th, but that the 14th doesn’t apply to the President:
There’s a new decision among the cases making their way through the nation’s judicial system that seek to bar former President Donald Trump from 2024 presidential ballots by using section three of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution — but it’s complicated. So bear with me.
Let’s start with the basics of what Colorado District Judge Sarah B. Wallace wrote in her ruling: First, she rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the 14th Amendment was intended to be read as the President of the United States is ““an officer of the United States.” Judge Wallace decided that by finding that “Section 3 did not include the presidential oath in that category.”
The clause does not explicitly name the presidency, so that question hinged on whether the president was included in the category “officer of the United States.”
The complication comes in after that. Yes, in the end, the decision by this state judge is that this cannot be used to keep the former president off Colorado’s ballot. But that wasn’t all that she determined in her ruling — and this part will likely please the leftists and Never Trump antagonists:
With his actions before and during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Judge Sarah B. Wallace ruled, Mr. Trump engaged in insurrection against the Constitution, an offense that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — which was ratified in 1868 to keep former Confederates out of the government — deems disqualifying for people who previously took an oath to support the Constitution.
In other words, she said Trump “incited” the people who took part in entering the Capitol.
[….]
This isn’t over, in other words, and it’s believed that the Colorado case will likely end up at the Supreme Court……
This is a large “Sploosh” as a Part Three to the question of Trump’s ability to be on the ballot for the 2024 election. In my Part Two dated Sept 7th, based on a great couple readings that: “I see nothing in the 14th Amendment including the President or Vice President in the outcome. In fact, I see language excluding them.” (Also Part One is worth reading through as well.)
The guy who popularized the article noted by the #NeverTrumpers and the Left is the co-founder of The Federalist Society, Steven Calabresi. And when he came out in support of by a couple Federalist legal scholars [as well as some Leftist scholars], the Left and said #NeverTrumpers were quick to memorialize it:
THE NATIONAL PULSE nails it with this link fested post!
Steven Calabresi – the law professor who co-founded the conservative Federalist Society legal organization – has conceded that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does not in fact bar former President Donald Trump from the presidential ballot, despite claiming in a much-hyped op-ed from August that this was the case.
The Northwestern University law professor had been an outspoken proponent of the legal theory that Trump was barred from running for office on the grounds that he incited an insurrection on January 6th, 2021 – in violation of a Civil War era constitutional provision. It’s an initially floated by law professors William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, with Calabresi quickly popularizing it.
[….]
The three men were originally in agreement that “an officer of the United States” included individuals elected as either President or Vice-President. However, Calabresi now says he believes that the President and Vice-President are not, due to “a technicality in the drafting of the disqualification clause of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment”, “officers” – that term being reserved for positions appointed by the President, rather than the President himself.
Additionally he concedes the events of January 6th do not constitute an ‘insurrection’. Calabresi credits former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey with changing his mind.
New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan has already rejected calls to disqualify Trump, via the 14th Amendment, from the state’s ballot.
The VOLOKH CONSPIRACY notes the change of mind: “Calabresi now agrees with Tillman that the President is not an “Officer of the United States.” And YAHOO NEWS also notes that last week professor Calabresi made an about-face
So I wanted to help out the #NeverTrumpers and pre-empt their correcting themselves:
Here is the WALL STREET JOURNAL “quick clip” by Professor Calabresi:
Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s op-ed “Was Trump ‘an Officer of the United States’?” (Sept. 8) has caused me to change my mind about an argument that I have had with Prof. Seth Barrett Tillman for 25 years. Mr. Mukasey is right: Looked at in the context of the Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment, the president is neither an “officer of the United States,” nor, obviously, a “member of Congress.” That must be why the Constitution prescribes a separate oath for the president.
As a result, former President Donald Trump isn’t covered by the Disqualification Clause, and he is eligible to be on the ballot in the 2024 presidential election. I am correcting the public record on this important issue by sending you this letter.
Prof. Steven G. Calabresi
Northwestern Law School
VOLOKH continues:
Here is key point from that WALL STREET JOURNAL article:
Was Trump ‘an Officer of the United States’?
A careful look at the 14th Amendment’s Insurrection Clause shows that it doesn’t apply to him.
….A good deal of attention has focused thus far on whether the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an “insurrection or rebellion” and, if so, whether Mr. Trump “engaged” in it. Those questions, however, need not be answered until two preliminary questions of law are addressed: Is the presidency an “office . . . under the United States,” and was the presidential oath Mr. Trump swore on Jan. 20, 2016, to support the Constitution taken “as an officer of the United States”?
The latter question is easier. The use of the term “officer of the United States” in other constitutional provisions shows that it refers only to appointed officials, not to elected ones. In U.S. v. Mouat (1888), the Supreme Court ruled that “unless a person in the service of the government . . . holds his place by virtue of an appointment . . ., he is not, strictly speaking, an officer of the United States.” Chief Justice John Roberts reiterated the point in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2010): “The people do not vote for the ‘Officers of the United States.’ ”
Article VI of the Constitution provides that senators and representatives “and all executive and judicial Officers . . . of the United States” take an oath to support the Constitution. But the presidential oath is separately provided for at the end of Article II, Section 1, which would be superfluous if the president’s oath were required by the general language in Article VI. Mr. Trump took an oath as president pursuant to Article II, not as an officer pursuant to Article VI. Because the Insurrection Clause applies only to those who have taken an oath “as an officer of the United States,” he can’t be barred by that clause from serving in any capacity.
As for the former question, the language disqualifying a rebel from holding “any office . . . under the United States” follows the language disqualifying the rebel from office as “Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President.” If “any office . . . under the United States” is broad enough to cover the president, it is certainly broad enough to cover senators, representatives and perhaps electors. Such a reading would make reference to those specific offices superfluous.
[….]
As for the former question, the language disqualifying a rebel from holding “any office . . . under the United States” follows the language disqualifying the rebel from office as “Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President.” If “any office . . . under the United States” is broad enough to cover the president, it is certainly broad enough to cover senators, representatives and perhaps electors. Such a reading would make reference to those specific offices superfluous.
Is it plausible that the authors of the 14th Amendment specified senators, representatives and electors but meant to include the presidency and vice presidency under the general term “any office . . . under the United States”? Note that the term is “any office,” not “any other office,” which implies that the positions listed before it aren’t “offices under the United States,” because they are elected not appointed.
But that conclusion is uncertain. The phrase “office under the United States” appears four other times in the body of the Constitution, at least two of which—one barring officeholders from accepting a foreign title or emolument, and one barring anyone impeached and convicted from holding such an office—may well apply to an elected official, including the president. Also, if a holder of an “office under the United States” meant the same thing as “Officer of the United States,” why weren’t the same words used to specify it?
That may be puzzling, but as applied to Mr. Trump it is irrelevant, because—again—he didn’t take and thus didn’t violate an oath as an “Officer of the United States,” and so cannot be barred by the 14th Amendment from seeking re-election.
Even a criminal conviction wouldn’t bar him from seeking and winning the presidency. The Constitution specifies only that a person seeking that office be at least 35, a natural-born citizen and a 14-year U.S. resident. If Mr. Trump is to be kept from office, it will have to be done the old-fashioned way, the way it was done in 2020—by defeating him in an election.
Mr. Mukasey served as U.S. attorney general, 2007-09, and as a U.S. district judge, 1988-2006.
JIM G. said this:
To which I MERELY SAY:
Let “me” explain.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 14th AMENDMENT ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
AN UPDATE
Before continuing however I wish to update a previous news piece noted in a connected post from YAHOO NEWS, which said:
The update ends like all the other attempts at this novel legal theory and misreading of the 14th Amendment – failure. The update to this story is this JUST THE NEWS:
… CONTINUING
BREITBART has a good short article discussing the idea a bit when they say:
The text specifically lists “Senator,” Representative,” and “elector of President and Vice President,” but does not specifically mention the president or vice president. Some of those who advocate using Section 3 to disqualify Trump suggest that the president falls under the category of “any office.” Law professors William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen argue, for example, that the language of Section 3 must be interpreted broadly.
But there is also the legal convention of expressio unius est exclusio alterius (“the express mention of one thing excludes all others”), meaning that if a list omits something, it is presumed to have done so deliberately.
Again, another source likewise notes the idea:
Section 3 specifically lists representatives, senators, and electors of POTUS and VP, but does not specifically list POTUS and VP. Clearly the 14th excludes the President and Vice President from the listed elected offices barred under the amendment.
Byron York in his WASHINGTON EXAMINER post shows the recent arguments from those that wish to remove Trump — then goes on to explain how these arguments fail. (Michael McConnell is a contributing author to the book on the right)
It all seems a little too simple, doesn’t it? A voice of caution in all this comes from Michael McConnell. First, McConnell is skeptical about applying the word “insurrection” to the events of Jan. 6, 2021. “Section 3 speaks of ‘insurrection’ and ‘rebellion,'” he wrote. “These are demanding terms, connoting only the most serious of uprisings against the government, such as the Whisky Rebellion and the Civil War. The terms of Section 3 should not be defined down to include mere riots or civil disturbances, which are common in United States history. Many of these riots impede the lawful operations of government, and exceed the power of normal law enforcement to control. Are they insurrections or rebellions, within the meaning of Section 3?”
McConnell continued: “I would hazard the suggestion that a riot is the use of violence to express anger or to attempt to coerce the government to take certain actions, while insurrections and rebellions are the use of violence, usually on a larger scale, to overthrow the government or prevent it from being able to govern.”
Again, the widely accepted and understood legal convention is “if a list omits something, it is presumed to have done so deliberately.” Another TWEET I liked was this one:
Art. VI, § 3 where the Constitution lists who is required to swear or affirm to support the Constitution, the President is NOT included in the broad category of “executive officers”. That’s because Art. II S 8 specifies the oath (different from that of an officer) required by the President. There is no title of Commander in Chief in any military or govt branch. It’s exclusive.
Obviously the framers viewed the President as something greater than an executive officer.
14th amd. Sec3 DOES amend qualifications for Congress by textually excluding former members guilty of insurrection. It also textually excludes insurrectionists from being POTUS electors. BUT it avoids textually excluding or including a former POTUS because there again he is not an officer. The framers obviously didn’t go there. In the 2nd bogus impeachment trial Trump was acquitted of inciting an insurrection by the Senate, a branch of the US govt. The opinion that he is constitutionally barred is flawed, easily debunked and an insane interpretation!
this shortened video of Crossroads (EPOCH-TV):
This will be my first installment to a legal challenge just getting underway in keeping Trump from office. Some say this is new, it is not. Some say Trump being charged with “insurrection” isn’t needed, it is. David Frum correctly says the Court will decide in the end. Frum also notes that if this tactic is opened up, our body-politic will be riddled with keeping our political foes from office. More distortions of the law will surely come as the Left uses Lawfare to attack the “Democracy” they say they want to protect. As more is written on these challenges and the hyperbole from the MSM and politicians splash into our lives, I will be posting on this more in the future.
This old challenge reignited “anew” by a couple Federalist legal scholars [as well as some Leftist scholars] is that Trump can be barred from future office positions due to “insurrection.”
This will be a thing.
THE CHALLENGE EXPLAINED A BIT
Firstly, as much as the Left opines that an insurrection conviction isn’t needed, it is, in reality, in order to bar Trump from office. If the Left tries to push this thru without a solid legal ground, the electorate will clearly note this and there will be hell to pay.
And, I assume, in the end the Supes will need to get involved. Especially if pushed thru before the election like Trump’s 2nd shampeachment.
More on SCOTUS from David Frum below.
COURT CASE ALREADY STARTED
Here is a recent news story of a Florida case already being pushed thru:
A Florida lawyer is challenging former President Trump’s ability to run for president in 2024 under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, citing the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Lawrence Caplan, a tax attorney in Palm Beach County, filed the challenge in federal court Thursday, pointing to a clause in the amendment that says those who “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the government cannot hold office.
Here is a video, also Left leaning, explaining the issue well:
PUSHING BACK ON THIS IDEA
[As an aside: just to note officially on my site, the current cases against Trump are being rushed through the courts, however, Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley both say isn’t going to happen.]
THE FEDERALIST has this response to a recent 126-page paper on Trump not being eligible for the Presidency:
….Despite the scenes of the attack on the Capitol and extensive investigations, the American people do not seem to agree that Trump took part in an insurrection or rebellion. Almost half the respondents in a THE HILL rejected the claim that the events of Jan. 6 were an actual “insurrection” (with the divide tracking partisan lines), and 76 percent viewed it as a “protest gone too far.”
Other considerations also call into question the claim that Trump instigated an “insurrection” in the constitutional sense. If it were clear that Trump engaged in insurrection, the Justice Department should have acted on the Jan. 6 Committee’s referral for prosecution on that charge. Special Counsel Jack Smith should have indicted him for insurrection or seditious conspiracy, which remain federal crimes. If it were obvious that Trump had committed insurrection, Congress should have convicted him in the two weeks between Jan. 6 and Inauguration Day. Instead, the House impeached Trump for indictment to insurrection but the Senate acquitted him.
The Senate’s acquittal is the only official finding by a federal or state institution on the question of whether Trump committed insurrection. The failure of the special counsel to charge insurrection and the Senate to convict in the second impeachment highlights a serious flaw in the academic theory of disqualification.
According to Luttig and Tribe, it appears self-evident that Trump committed insurrection. They assume Trump violated the law without any definitive finding by any federal authority. According to their view, he must carry the burden of proof to show he is not guilty of insurrection or rebellion — a process that achieves the very opposite of our Constitution’s guarantee of due process, which, it so happens, is not just provided for by the Fifth Amendment, but reaffirmed in the same 14th Amendment that contains the disqualification clause. It would be like requiring Barak Obama to prove he was native-born (a constitutional prerequisite for being president) if state election officials disqualified him for being foreign-born.
The Electoral College Chooses Presidents, Not State Officials
If this academic view were correct, it would throw our electoral system into chaos. One of the chief virtues of the Electoral College system is that it decentralizes the selection of the president: State legislatures decide the manner for choosing electors, with each state receiving votes equal to its representation in the House and Senate. States run the elections, which means that hundreds, if not thousands, of city, county, and state officials could execute this unilateral finding of insurrection. A county state election official, for example, could choose to remove Trump’s name from printed ballots or refuse to count any votes in his favor. A state court could order Trump barred from the election. A state governor could refuse to certify any electoral votes in his favor. The decentralization of our electoral system could allow a single official, especially from a battleground state, to sway the outcome of a close race in the 2024 presidential election.
Allowing a single state to wield this much power over the federal government runs counter to broader federalism principles articulated by the Supreme Court. In our nation’s most important decision on the balance of power between the national government and the states, McCullough v. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall held that a single state could not impose a tax on the Bank of the United States. Marshall famously observed that “the power to tax is the power to destroy.”
Marshall may well have frowned upon single state officials deciding to eliminate candidates for federal office on their own initiative. The Supreme Court lent further support for this idea in United States Term Limits v. Thornton (1995), which held that states could not effectively add new qualifications for congressional candidates by barring long-time incumbents from appearing on the ballot. Writing for the majority, Justice Stevens argued that allowing states to add term limits as a qualification for their congressional elections conflicted with “the uniformity and national character [of Congress] that the framers sought to ensure.” Allowing state election officials to decide for themselves whether someone has incited or committed insurrection, without any meaningful trial or equivalent proceeding, would give states the ability to achieve what term limits forbid.
[….]
We are not apologists for Trump’s spreading of baseless claims of electoral fraud or his efforts to stop the electoral count on Jan. 6. But as with the weak charges brought by the special counsel, the effort to hold Trump accountable for his actions should not depend on a warping of our constitutional system. Prosecutors should charge him with insurrection if they can prove it and have that conviction sustained on appeal. Congress should disqualify Trump if it can agree he committed the crime. Ultimately, the American people will decide Trump’s responsibility for the events of Jan. 6, but at the ballot box in 2024’s nominating and general elections for president…
TRUMP NOT CHARGED with INSURRECTION
Insurrection is still key in this endeavor, and, as mush as Laurence Tribe thinks it is self evident, the case has not been made. In THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR has a great little article worthy of noting,
For 31 months, the Democrats and their allies in the corporate media have characterized the Capitol Hill chaos that erupted on Jan. 6, 2021 as an “insurrection.” The House of Representatives reinforced this version of events by impeaching then-President Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” The Senate acquitted him, of course. Nonetheless, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack referred the case to the Justice Department for further investigation. Consequently, it was something of a surprise that the formal indictment unsealed last Tuesday by Special Counsel Jack Smith failed to charge Trump with fomenting insurrection.
This must have been particularly frustrating for those who have long insisted that the 14th Amendment prohibits Trump from serving a second presidential term. The primary purpose of the 14th Amendment was, of course, to grant citizenship to emancipated slaves. However, it also includes language in Section 3 that bars anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [United States]” from holding office in the federal government. This passage was included to prevent former officials of the Confederacy from returning to Congress and creating more mischief. The problem with using this clause against Donald Trump is explained by constitutional law professor Josh Blackman in Reason:
In some legal circles, advocates contend that it is so obvious that Trump committed insurrection. Yet, the special counsel, after studying the issue for months, opted not to bring that charge. Why? Perhaps Smith determined that he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump engaged in insurrection. Or maybe Smith determined there were considerable legal questions about how to obtain such a conviction – most critically, was there an actual insurrection? (Yes, for the Supreme Court to knock Trump off the ballot, you need five votes to say that there was an insurrection as a matter of law – good luck with that!)
It evidently never occurred to the victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome that “insurrection” is a legal term with an actual definition in the U.S. Code. In order to convict former President Trump of this crime, the Special Prosecutor must prove that he fits the following description in 18 U.S.C. § 2383: “Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto.” Anyone convicted of insurrection can expect a long prison term and a hefty fine. It would be difficult to convict Trump under this statute, considering that not one participant in the Jan. 6 riot has been charged with insurrection…..
DAVID FRUM’S ATLANTIC PIECE
And it may be a 50-state attempt, which will push it to the Supes sooner rather than later. David Frum, a #NeverTrump guy, notes this will be a failed endeavor by simply stating in his ATLANTIC piece:
Continuing he states:
….The least of these problems is the legal one: whether Trump’s scheme to seize the presidency by fraud, then violence, amounts to a “rebellion” or an “insurrection” under the amendment. There will be a lot of disagreement on that point, enough to generate litigation. But let’s suppose that the excluders win in court or that the courts abdicate altogether, kicking the dispute back to the elected branches of government as a “political matter.”
In that case, the use of the section to debar candidates would not stop at Trump. It would become a dangerously convenient tool of partisan politics.
LET’S RECONSIDER the text:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Because Section 3’s meaning seemed so obvious in 1866, a lot of the hard questions about its interpretation and application were shrugged off. I’ll nominate just two examples.
First, the section does not apply only to candidates for president—it does not even mention the president. It mentions senators, House members, electors, and civil and military officers of the United States or any state. The section appears to apply to the presidency only as part of that final catchall category.
Second, that phrase “aid and comfort to the enemies thereof”—what does that mean? The language is copied from Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution. But there, the language was drafted to make it difficult to convict an accused person of crime: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”
David H. Gans: The Fourteenth Amendment was meant to be a protection against state violence
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment strips away all of the 1787 restrictions: the overt act, the two witnesses, the requirement of public confession. The question of what constitutes “aid and comfort” is left to the judgment of … wait—Section 3 gives no clue about how it should be enforced or by whom. Again, that’s understandable. In 1866, none of this looked complicated. But in a modern context, that enforcement question of a reactivated Section 3 will be nasty.
Consider the scenario in which Section 3 is invoked against Trump in 2024. Although he has won the Republican nomination, Democratic secretaries of state in key states refuse to place his name on their ballots, as a person who engaged in insurrection against the United States. With Trump’s name deleted from some swing-state ballots, President Joe Biden is easily reelected.
But only kind of reelected. How in the world are Republicans likely to react to such an outcome? Will any of them regard such a victory as legitimate? The rage and chaos that would follow are beyond imagining.
And then what? If Section 3 can be reactivated in this way, then reactivated it will be. Republicans will hunt for Democrats to disqualify, and not only for president, but for any race where Democrats present someone who said or did something that can be represented as “aid and comfort” to enemies of the United States. Didn’t progressive Representative Ilhan Omar once seemingly equate al-Qaeda with the U.S. military? Do we think that her political enemies will accept that she was making only a stupid rhetorical point? Earlier this year, Tennessee Republicans tossed out of the legislature two Black Democrats for allegedly violating House rules. Might Tennessee Republicans next deem unruly Democrats “rebels” forbidden ever to run for office again?
Where are the federal courts in all this? Do they actually stand aside as local officials exercise veto power over who’s a loyal enough American to be listed on the ballot for county commissioner? Do they really let the “elected branches” decide? And what would that mean in practice? The section transfers an otherwise presidential prerogative, the pardon power, to Congress. If the courts step back, does that not imply that the House and Senate must somehow find a way to wield the power of the section together?
That seems unlikely. But the alternative of judicial decision is fraught with institutional risks too. Imagine a serious effort to block Trump from appearing on ballots in 2024, and then suppose he challenges that block in court—and ultimately wins a ruling in his favor from the Supreme Court, by a margin of 5–4 or even 6–3. Now the rage and chaos would be reversed. A pro-Trump Thomas-Alito-Gorsuch-Barrett-Kavanaugh majority might obliterate whatever deference the Court still commands among Democrats and liberals. Although much is wrong with the present Court, this country will not be in a better or happier place if it loses its last, imperfect arbiter….
UPDATED ON 09/18/2023 | CNN Transcript
A CNN interview was just pointed out to me where a “not-fan of Trump” said rationally what David Frum said, and that is, allowing states to go down this path will create vindictive cross-fire that will spread through our body-politic:
STERLING: What we need to do is focus on the voters. We have a Constitutional Republic of laws that essentially empowers voters to make decisions. They make good ones. They make bad ones. They generally come out OK. We have to trust the voters in this. And anybody using an electoral scheme or a constitutional interpretation to remove anybody from the ballots is going to be a dangerous precedent.
Because I can guarantee you what happens, it start up from the Bork hearings in ’86. One side does one thing, the other side does something else. The other side blames the last side for doing it. There will be a Republican saying, you have violated your oath of office under the Constitution. I’m barring you from the ballot. That’s all we’re going to see happening. We need to have grown-ups in the room look at the long term implications of these things. Whether we disagree with the individual candidate or loved a individual candidate.
FRUM IS RIGHT
Bottom line?
IN THE END, SCOTUS SAVES THE DAY
And Frum is exactly right on this point as well: Republicans will hunt for Democrats to disqualify. As much as I love the GOP using the Dems tactics against them. Take for instance Mitch McConnell’s warning to Harry Reid, which came to fruition when the Republicans [thankfully] used to get judges onto the bench that were center-right. If this “insurrection/sedition” tactic is unleashed, our system will have a ton of these potholes, forever disrupting the turnover of power peaceably.
ALREADY TRIED
The WASHINGTON TIMES also notes that this effort has already been unsuccessful with other Republican candidates
….According to the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan shared staff to congressional committees and members of Congress, “Invocation of the Disqualification Clause raises a number of novel legal questions involving the activities that could trigger disqualification, the offices to which disqualification might apply, and the mechanisms to enforce disqualification.”
CRS’ analysis of the 14th Amendment relating to the Capitol events adds, “The clause has been seldom used, and the few times it has been used in the past mainly arose out of the Civil War—a very different context from the events of January 6.”
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have joined Free Speech for People with plans to hit Mr. Trump‘s campaign with legal broadsides under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
They have written letters to state election officials requesting them to block Mr. Trump from the ballot and are preparing voter lawsuits and state election board complaints.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War during Reconstruction, disqualifies someone from holding office after taking an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution but later engages in “insurrection or rebellion” against the country.
The clause was intended to deal with Confederate rebels who went to war against the Union or provided aid or comfort to national enemies.
Throughout 2022, liberal organizations such as Free Speech for People and Our Revolution sent letters urging election officials in all 50 states to disqualify Mr. Trump and his allies from qualifying for the ballot.
The groups cited the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, to make a case for barring lawmakers and the former president from running campaigns because of their perceived role in inciting the protest.
Liberal activists’ 2022 legal attempts under the 14th Amendment, however, to throw Republican House lawmakers they contended were “insurrectionists” off ballots in their home states were all unsuccessful.
These lawmakers were Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona, Tom Tiffany and Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin, Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
A law firm recently filed a lawsuit arguing that former President Donald Trump can be disqualified from the elections. And while this is new, it pulls from an agenda that the establishment has been proposing since 2021. The basis is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 just after the Civil War. It says a person can be banned from election or appointment to any level of government office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [United States], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” The establishment has been arguing this could apply to President Trump’s actions to challenge the 2020 election, and for his alleged role in Jan. 6.
HOWEVER, as pointed out, Joshua Philipp points out this has already been tried, and failed:
MORE TO COME IN THE FUTURE, FOR SURE.
Federalist Bonus
John Yoo & John Malcolm
Below are four excerpts from a longer FEDERALIST SOCIETY discussion between John Malcolm and John Yoo: “A Conversation on the Right: The Current State of Presidential Power”.
EXCERPT ONE:
John Yoo Says That January 6th Was “Thee Most Important Legal Event”
In this excerpted discussion John Yoo notes that the January 6th stuff is not nearly as strong as the Mara-Lago case (and in the fuller video he throws cold water on that as well). John Malcolm also discusses the ability of counsel to delve into all sorts of avenues of legal thought and advice. Jack Smith laid out an argument that undercuts his and Georgia’s entire case [should watch the above linked video for more]:
3. The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He w6as also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful. (HERITAGE FOUNDATION)
EXCERPT TWO:
Insurrection and Sedition Not Part of Indictments | PLUS: Trump’s State of Mind
In this excerpted discussion John Yoo notes the lack of “insurrection” or “sedition” in the indictments. John Malcolm speaks to Trump’s clear words of “peacefully and patriotically marching” – which he says is not in the record of the indictment. Trump’s state of mind is discussed a bit.
EXCERPT THREE:
Brad Raffensperger/Trump Phone Call Dissected by John Malcolm
In this excerpted discussion John Malcolm quickly notes the failure of any criminal law breaking in the phone call between Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Donald Trump regarding the “finding” of votes. The worst of intentions is applied to Trump by those that dislike him, however, the law done well looks beyond people’s opinions of him.
EXCERPT FOUR:
A Question About What Type Of Legal Advice John Eastman Gave
This is a question regarding John Eastman’s legal advice from the Q & A portion of the video.