The constitutional case that Donald Trump is already banned from being president
The constitutional case that Donald Trump is already banned from being president
Two conservative lawyers make a strong 14th Amendment argument. But the politics of their theory are very, very dicey.
Doesn’t matter. This is America where things like that are ignored. This is how people like Clarence Thomas can keep their job. Corruption and criminality are rewarded in America. But only if you’re in politics.
184Seriously anyone remember the issue with Emoluments? They were specifically banned in the constitution, and the Government was sued over it, and then the Supreme court sat on it until Trump was no longer president and then the supreme ruled it moot. Republicans will not play by the rules.
89The issue we have is that the checks for a bad actor are impeachment and elections. The founders thought "surely, elected officials would put country over party". They were wrong there, so now impeachment is ineffective.
The founders thought "surely, voters wouldn't elect an immortal leader". Again, dead wrong.
Voting is really the only effective check at this point, which is why Republicans try to undermine it at every turn. Vote in every election!
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Or if you own a billion dollar corporation. Then it's encouraged and just good business!
15Just stop being poor, easy clap
11You are free to sue to keep his name off the ballot. I don't think a court would side with you until he has been duly convicted, but we can hope.
4You left out "and religion"
4Same thing.
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Two conservative legal scholars, members of the Federalist Society in good standing, have just published an audacious argument: that Donald Trump is constitutionally prohibited from running for president, and that state election officials have not only the authority but the legal obligation to prevent his name from appearing on the ballot.
Spicy!
95You guys should have let him win and end his second term.
All this crap is just elevating him to martyrdom, and god forbid you actually put him in jail before the elections. This has trendously backfire so many times throughout history. 100 years are gonna pass and you will still have people being trumpists wearing maga hats.
-101You're an idiot because that was going to happen either way, as they are already a cult. We need to face the fact that Trump is the new Joseph Smith/L Ron Hubbard/Jim Jones, leading his congregation of fascists. MAGA is going to be something we're going to be dealing with at least as long as Trump lives, if not longer.
Four more years of Trump would have allowed him to solidify his power and end democracy in the United States, he needed to be voted out, if not more direct means of removal.
52should have let him win
Actually made me laugh. Guys, democrats just need to let repubs win and not hold elected officials responsible for crimes in office, come on.
26Nice try Donald
21Should have let him "win"? First off his plan was thwarted by his own party, his own staff, and his own appointed judges. Virtually all his political opponents did is critism him from a distance.
But let's pretend that everyone should have helped steal the election, or voted for him out of fear (yikes), you really think this guy was ever gonna leave the white house, even after a 2nd term?
He's been hinting at being president for life a few times, and he was slowly replacing all the top positions in the country by loyalist. Meanwhile, his supporters were absolutely thrilled at the idea that Ivanka should be his successors, and that we should live under the Trump dynasty. After a 2nd term he would have pulled some shit, created a crisis out of his own to justify extending his presidential powers, and if he succeeded, that would have been it. He telegraphied his every move and a lot of peolle in 2016 already knew he would not leave willingly and call the next election rigged. He telegraphied wanting to be president for life, and you can be absolutely sure that he would not have stopped at a 2nd term.
17Trump as a martyr is still better than Trump as POTUS. Believing that criminals should just get out of charges because of if their station or their potential martyrdom is the biggest issue with the US legal system. It creates a separate set of laws only for the rich and elite. The biggest failure through all of this legal stuff is that he's allowed to walk around free instead of spending time in jail like everyone else would. Lock him up and take away his social media access, and his message will be mitigated reducing the martyr effect.
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I hereby officially declare Donald J. Trump ineligible to hold office, under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.
There, I fucking did it. Challenge me in court, you orange bastard.
42When the federalist society is involved, in any capacity, you have to pause and see the bigger picture. A key player in/around that org is leonard leo. If you're not aware, Leo is in and around the stories of all of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court - including being a key facilitator in the recent overt corruption stories with thomas and alito (he's also the name that funnels money to "ginny" thomas, clarence thomas' batshit insane, Jan 6th supporting wife.
So this (from the article) is likely closer to the actual point of them publishing, to sow doubt and discord:
"But as a matter of politics, encouraging state election officials to go rogue and kick Trump off the ballot is a recipe for disaster. And that disconnect, between what the law says and the practical barriers to implementing it, speaks to some deep problems in American democracy that led to Trump’s insurrection in the first place."
They want that chaos. These aren't your friends and allies.
29If they get the Trump ruled out, they can start claiming all dems engage in insurrection and have the supreme court uphold it.
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I would love to see it happen but will remain pessimistic. It seems all the wealthy people get away with whatever they want.
15It is important to note that trump still has the right to due process under s2 of the 14th, and will probably be the grounds for dismissal if there isn’t some sort of court hearing.
The NM case probably sets some precedent saying he doesn’t have to be convicted …. But I have no confidence in SCROTUS
13This is the best summary I could come up with:
Baude and Paulsen’s paper, set to be published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, focusing on plain-language readings on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and the way its key terms were used in political discussion around the time of enactment.
If this interpretation is correct, then the legal case against Trump is fairly straightforward — all established by facts in public reporting, evidence from the January 6 committee, and the recent federal indictment.
Even if (let’s say) the members of a state board of elections think someone below the drinking age would make the best president in American history, the law is clear that such a person can’t hold office and thus can’t be permitted to run.
Every official involved in the US election system, from a local registrar to members of Congress, has an obligation to determine if candidates for the presidency and other high office are prohibited from running under Section 3.
Moreover, state election officials are not federal judges; the very existence of Griffin’s Case, however poorly reasoned, creates real doubt as to whether they are legally empowered to do what Baude and Paulsen are telling them they have to do.
Best case, there’s a write-in campaign to put Trump in the presidency, giving rise to a constitutional crisis if he won (since the Supreme Court would have ruled him ineligible in upholding the state officials’ actions).
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
12I think, the problem is, somebody needs to challenge his elligibility in each and every state.
Like this guy:
It's not an AUTOMATIC disqualification, it still needs to be adjudicated... At least in enough states to take away 270 electoral votes.
12It's not an AUTOMATIC disqualification, it still needs to be adjudicated
I might have mistaken what was written, but the scholars in the paper explicitly point out section 3 is 'self-executing'. ~Which means it does not require adjuducation.~ I was mistaken, see comment below.
If it happened before, that doesn't mean it was necessary.
7"Self-executing" there means that the Constitutional prohibition doesn't require Congress to pass a law on the subject.
Some Constitutional provisions do require Congressional action to take effect. For instance, the income tax is authorized by the Sixteenth Amendment, but the amendment does not itself create an income tax; it just tells Congress that it may do so.
(The original Constitution did not allow an income tax, because it expected the federal government to fund itself from tariffs and from tax assessments from the states, which were required to be proportional to population.)
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I realized this on the 6th. It's the first thing that crossed my mind when I knew what was happening. I'm not a legal scholar; I'm a mathematician, so I'm wondering how it took so long for this to happen.
8I think this would be a very hard thing to enforce safely, at least in the context the lawyers say the 14th amendment is actionable. If someone like a governor or hell a county clerk were to raise an objection and attempt to prevent Trump's name from appearing on the ballots, they might have the authority to do so, but there would be challenges all the way up the chain, and pressure from voters and civilians to keep his name up, likely through threat of violence if we follow the same pattern as the 2020 elections and the insurrection.
At this point, do we risk the possibility of Trump getting a second term, or take that possibility off the table but put ourselves in another possible insurrection attempt?
8I think random threats of violence from a bunch of morons who have no understanding of how the world works is still a better option than full on fascism, were he to run and win.
19The smart move? Register Republican and vote for third party candidates en masse in the primary. Then throw your vote to whichever useless slug lands in the D column on your general ticket.
10I wish i didn't agree with this so thoroughly.
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There are already suits being prepared to send to states in order to disqualify Trump from appearing on the ballot, on the basis of the 14th Amendment, Section 3. Such a suit was partially successful in New Mexico, against a county commissioner who was convicted of trespassing for entering the Capitol building on Jan 6, 2021.
In that case, the court found that A) Jan 6 was, for the purposes of 14A S3, an "insurrection," and B), that the defendant in the suit engaged in that insurrection. The election occurred while the case was awaiting appeal, and the defendant lost, so the case is moot.
However, that Part B above is informative, in that it is most certainly not required that a defendant of such a case have been convicted of "insurrection or rebellion," only that they have engaged in the same. Where there was an insurrection, did the defendant contribute to that insurrection? Where the answer is yes, the person (who has previously held office and sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution) is disqualified from office. There is no requirement for any other legislation or legal case.
At this point, do we risk the possibility of Trump getting a second term, or take that possibility off the table but put ourselves in another possible insurrection attempt?
The possibility of Trump gaining the presidency again is more likely than there being a significantly successful insurrection or rebellion in response to his being disqualified from the ballot for the 2024 election. Furthermore, Trump's candidacy is currently all but certain - at present, he will be on the ballot in all fifty states and various territories - and the election is closer in time than any possible public turmoil in response to it. The greater likelihood of Trump being put back in office, and the nearer proximity in time of that event, means that we should be addressing that possibility, and not second guessing based on a "what if?" prediction.
Back to the process of applying 14A S3. Application does not require any court filing. Surely, a judicial order would carry more "legitimacy" with certain people, but the disqualification just is, in the same way that the disqualification for the office of president for people under age 35 just is. States have their own various processes for determining who is qualified to run for office, and who has the authority to make those decisions. Court cases are not necessary.
Practically speaking, Trump would only need to be disqualified in a handful of swing states - Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan all come to mind - for him to be unable to reach 270 electoral votes.
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he's gonna be barred from walking around freely in my Republic soon enough
2I think he's ineligible for office for so many reasons but this argument is pretty weak. It just won't go anywhere other than Lincoln Project masturbation.
0Why is it weak?
5It relies on everyone agreeing that Trump's actions equates to insurrection. So it's assuming the conclusion.
He isn't even being charged with the crime of "insurrection." There are legal definitions of the term and he hasn't met them, according to rhe Special Counsel at least. So it's extremely hard to make the case that his actions in particular amount to disqualifying actions legally, for him.
There's easy evidence that he shouldn't be president, you just shouldn't vote for him in the primary or the general, but the bar for saying he is currently legally barred from running is so high and the argument essentially assumes the conclusion. If you assume that yes he did commit insurrection, he is barred...but how does one say that is legally the case if he has not been found guilty of that in a court of law?
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This is a coping mechanism. They have to believe there's a reason for their suffering, so they invent a plan that's happening behind the scenes that they'll only understand at some vague time in the future.
For the first hundred thousand or so years of human existence, this was fine, and helped keep us from losing our shit while developing our civilization.
Now? It's highly detrimental to our ability to cope with reality.
Therapy and good friends are where it's at.
There is no greater plan. Sometimes shit just happens and you've got to deal with it to move on. That's not something to be afraid of. That's just life.
-1Perhaps one of the most utterly retarded constitutional arguments possible
-5I definitely don't want the guy to run, but allowing the government to decide who is allowed to run for a third of the government is a dangerous thing
-21I don't understand your argument, it's not the government, it's the laws of the nation.
No different than why a non-US citizen or someone under 35 cannot hold the office.
Technically, a 25-year-old can run for office of US President but not hold it.
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We've had laws around who can run for office since the founding of the US.
You must be born in the US, you must be over 35, you must not be convicted of impeachment. You can't have tried to succeed from the US.
There are other laws that have effectively banned who can run. Most states have ballot access laws.
Rules about who can run aren't dangerous, so long as they are fair. Barring someone from participating in democracy that has tried to subvert it is more than fair.
23You can’t have tried to succeed from the US.
Psst: It’s “secede”
5You can't have tried to succeed from the US.
Tbf, that one was added later, for good reason.
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Allowing people to run for president who have a history of attempting to subvert democracy is decidedly more dangerous. Only a few specific crimes bar you from office and they are for good reason.
16The government already decides who its voters are by gerrymandering being legal. That ship sailed decades ago. So why sound the alarm over this? Concern trolling?
11"This dude just assassinated all the presidential candidates and admitted it. He just said he'll run for president. Don't let the government step in, okay?"
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