Prominent conservative legal scholars are increasingly raising a constitutional argument that 2024 Republican candidate Donald Trump should be barred from the presidency because of his actions to overturn the previous presidential election result.
It’s absolutely insane that it’s even up for fucking debate.
Is it though? Im not from the US so dont really have a dog in the fight, but hear me out.
On what basis should he not be allowed? Because he’s been indicted? Or because he was impeached? Both? Whatever the reason he would be barred would set a precedent.
Are there proper checks in place to ensure that the precedent set in place cant be met by simply stacking certain departments by a sitting president? The last thing you want is a pathway for a sitting president to effectively disqualify their opponent.
Clearly Trump is a monumental dickhead, but the problem is the people who vote for him more than anything
On what basis should he not be allowed?
Well, this is what the US constitution says:
Amendment XIV, Section 3.
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.
The question is whether those words apply to his actions, and who exactly has the responsibility to interpret them.
If he’s guilty of insurrection he should be accused, put to trial, and if convicted it should follow that he can’t run for president anymore.
So your interpretation of the 14th amendment is that “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” is the exclusive responsibility of the judicial system to determine? Maybe that’s a valid interpretation, but it’s not actually written in the text.
Ehm, yes it is. It’s the text.
Laws don’t say “a person who committed a crime, if the fact that this crime has been, in fact, committed by that person, has been decided by a judge, who has previously passed the exam necessary…”. Laws imply a few basic assumptions. One assumption is, that every decision by “the government” is in principle dependent on the judicial system.
If the IRS decides, you’re a millionaire now and taxes you accordingly, you can go to court and they will decide whether you’re actually taxable as a millionaire.
Trump may be deemed a traitor/insurrectionist by Congress/Senate/DOJ or any other body and thus barred from running, but he too can simply go to court and let it be decided - and given that the supreme court is, let’s say, rather in his favor, the result is rather obvious.
Trump will use any loophole, any slight formal error to get around this. So you have to have a really water tight case.
or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
Hundreds of rioters and those directly involved with the proud boys have pleaded guilty for their role in the instruction. Many of them giving sworn testimony stating that Trump himself gave them a call to action with his words, tweets and actions.
So even if Trump himself isn’t convicted on the charges that he is facing, him giving aid and comfort to those who have already been convicted should itself bar him from public office. (in my opinion - I am not a lawyer)
So what?
I’m not defending Trump, but convicting him, solely because of how others interpreted his messages is extremely dodgy.
Here, again, it’s up to judges to decide whether these tweets show intent to send these messages. Could Trump reasonably expect that these tweets would be received as an “order” to storm the Capitol?
If the IRS decides, you’re a millionaire now and taxes you accordingly, you can go to court and they will decide whether you’re actually taxable as a millionaire.
Funny enough, no you can’t. The courts don’t have any say in that.
There’s all kinds of government determinations that have no court remedy. Impeachment, for example, is done solely through congress.
Of course they have. If, say, they decide wrongly that the house you sold is worth 50million and not 50k, you can go to court for that.
Impeachment is a bit of a different beast, since it’s done by the governing body - essentially they’re making it legal on the fly. But even then, I’m pretty sure, if Congress would have decided in 2013 that Obama can’t be president because he’s black, there would be an option for the supreme court.
That too, but note that it doesn’t say “convicted”. There is no requirement for conviction.
So I can just accuse somebody and they’re barred from running?
A conviction means a process was followed, evidence was weighed, arguments pro and con were considered.
It says Congress could override it with a 2/3rds majority in both houses, so if Team Red wins a landslide next year, they actually could vote to allow him to run regardless, even if he is actually convicted of something.
That’s a terrible thought.
Just read the fucking article. The legal reasoning is pretty clearly explained. You’re basically asking people to read it for you.
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Simmer down dude, he’s just not ignorant, not evil.
Suck my wing-wang bruh.
Ah, but you’re missing an important distinction. He committed treasonous acts with plausible deniability! And he’ll always be able to come up with new lies and new ways to abuse you faster than you’ll be able to disprove his lies or protect yourself, so you may as well restore the monarchy already and put him on top.
EDIT: On a serious note, the comment you replied to is absolutely correct in the point they were making. If Trump is barred from the Oval Office, and the evidence and the way the evidence are presented are anything less than rock solid, then future presidents will absolutely weaponize it as precedent to lock out their political opponents (as happens in every other broken democracy).
Well both, of course.
What I think is insane is that the question of whether an impeached president can run again hadn’t been settled years ago. It’s just obvious. It shouldn’t be precedent setting. it’s something that should have been settled a long time ago.
On what basis? Because he committed a coup isn’t good enough?
Innocent until proven guilty still matters though, even when it seems like the justice system moves at a snail’s pace. His actions are coming down on him, and I think he’ll be behind bars before the election, but until then there’s no legal basis to block him from anything
It’s (legally) not decided whether he actually did.
He’s unfortunately smart enough to not simply say “let’s storm congress by force”. His messaging was vague enough that a trump-leaning judge could make an argument that he never intended this to happen. And letting things spiral out of control is not enough for an insurrection.
Because a vast swath of Americans, including most Republicans, want him to be able to run no matter what he does.
So should all of these. We can’t just punish Trump but let the rest go.
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I found the original Atlantic article better written: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/donald-trump-constitutionally-prohibited-presidency/675048/
Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office:
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.
If you want that block quote to format correctly, don’t indent the
. That way it will turn out like this, instead of a single line that can’t fit on the screen without scrolling (some mobile clients like Sync, probably show it alright, but the web client certainly doesn’t.):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.
Whoops, the indentation was copied over from the source. Corrected, thanks.
engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
Convict him of this and he won’t be able to run.
The amendment doesn’t require conviction, just engagement.
A conviction is the only way to prove engagement legally. Like you can pass a law that says sex offender can’t do X. But you can’t enforce it upon someone whose not on the sex offender list.
Trump doesn’t follow the constitution, nor is he held to its standards by those who have the authority to force him to. This is a non-starter.
If only conservatives listened to scholars. Then they might consider a) the intent of the constitution and b) the practical implications of nominating someone so unfit. Alas.
If only conservatives listened to scholars
Then they wouldn’t be conservatives. Academia and reality are famous for having left wing bias.
everyone knows scholars lead to education and education leads to a “woke” populace that doesn’t put up with this bullshit. gotta keep everyone dumb as bricks …
Lol. They absolutely do listen to scholars, and just like any other political group, they act on what they say when it’s convenient.
Federalist society is covering its bets here - putting up sone legal footholds for old establishment conservatism to use if they become handy - while doing so in such a way they don’t put themselves on the outs too unforgivably if Trump and his ilk weasel this way through this mess like they have so many times before.
“If you’re ignoring the constitution, it also means others see the second amendment as null and void.”
Maybe that gets their attention.
No, you see, for conservatives, laws are only valid insofar they support them. Laws are for the outgroup.
Legal scholars VS 49% of Americans, most of whom can’t read a coloring book. One guess who is going to vote for the orange turd anyway.
A little less than half the population doesn’t vote. So, it is more like 26% of Americans.
And since we have had 4 years of COVID festering in the south, I would imagine in 2024 he’ll get maybe 20%
Covid also did a number on Black and Hispanic service workers who were called essential and forced to go to work but not paid hazard pay.
Still a bit salty about that. To put it mildly.
Same here in Germany, service workers were called essential, applauded & called heroes. But they didn’t get the important part, more money.
Covid has been devastating and has likely affected more R voters, but I don’t think it will be enough to cause an electoral shift.
Red states have had a lower life is expectancy for years. Covid just added to that effect, but I don’t think it’s that much worse than any of the other confounding effects (like lower access to affordable health care or healthy food). On the contrary, it’s probably much less than that.
I’d guess electorally it’ll be similar, but by count it’ll be a larger gap this time. Not that popular votes matter in the us
There’s been roughly 1 million Covid deaths in the US since the pandemic started. Given a very gracious split of 70-30% between R-D voters, it means that there was a net loss of 400k Republican voters. (I hate to be talking about 1M lives lost in such a dry way)
During the 2020 presidential elections, Biden won the popular vote by 7 million votes. Even with ignoring the fact that the deadliest part of the pandemic was before the election, it’s not enough to have a big enough impact on the popular vote.
In swing states where the difference is 10k votes, that’s a whole different story. But then I would say that voter turnout is a much bigger thing to focus on.
Thanks for the numbers, looks like you’re probably right.
Turnout ultimately will be the deciding factor again
Sure as shit didn’t help them
Exactly… Saying.that it’s 49‰ vastly overestimates their position.
Comments like that help them solidify their beliefs that they could even have a majority… “Silent majority” my ass… They need to shut their loud fuckin mouths for a change actually
Let him destroy the GOP before you bar him. Thats thing has fot to go
That mission is pretty well accomplished. DeSatan is being pummeled by a Mouse, and Trump will run as an independent and split the vote if he doesn’t get the GOP nomination
Trump may be in the lead now, but he cannot campaign effectively with so many legal problems looming. He’s already planning on skipping the first debate this month and instead doing an interview with Tucker Carlson. Although I am unsure how that will be done. Fox News told Tucker to stop doing his Twitter show because he’s violating contract by doing such. Also, why would Trump still want to appear on any Tucker Carlson appearance now? While Tucker flirts with him in public, his texts to colleagues said he hated him and was sick of talking to or about him in the Dominion lawsuit evidence. I hope as part of sentencing for his indictments, the judge or jury really throws the book at Trump and tells him he must forfeit the presidential race. I’m not even sure if that’s a punishment they can issue, but I hope they can.
Republicans (and many polititians in gerneral) all hate each other, that is normal.
They are narcisitic power hungry psychopaths. They only cooperate, if they think it is advantagous to them and only them personally, in their quest to ammas as much power and influence as possible.
So it doesn’t matter what they think about each other in private, they will cooperate if it is helpful to them. That is why they are politically more successful against the liberals than leftist/progressives, because leftist take personal offences more seriously and deny collaboration based on that.
Looks like he’ll win the nomination pretty handily as of now.
I’m not sure we’re that lucky.
You don’t say, you geniuses?!
He shouldn’t be allowed to run, but it’s better if he does. An unchallenged DeSantis is way more likely to win against Biden than this guy.
In practice, it goes eventually to the Supreme Court which, like the Republican Party, has been Trumpified and therefore will see no problem, case closed.
I’m thinking it increasingly likely that those with the power to stop him will do nothing. As evidenced by the traitors still being in Congress.
They had two chances and didn’t do it. Those same scholars still voted for the same candidates in the primary.
At this point it should be illegal for him to even run.
His people will still vote for him, even if he’s legally barred from the job.
As much as I hate Trump - wouldn’t he need to be convicted for trying to overturn the election before he loses any civil rights over that?
They argue that it doesn’t remove anyone’s rights, it’s a constitutionally mandated eligibility requirement, no different from needing to be over 35 or US born
I think you could do it with a civil suit filed in the appropriate jurisdiction. But IANAL, so that’s just a guess. It seems like that’s what they did with the guy in New Mexico.
