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- cross-posted to:
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The 14th Amendment to the Constitution bans anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the U.S. from holding office.
A Florida lawyer is suing Donald Trump in an attempt to disqualify his current run for president. Lawrence A. Caplan’s Thursday lawsuit claims that the ex-president’s involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot would make him ineligible to run again, thanks to the Constitution’s 14th Amendment—a Civil War-era addition aimed at preventing those who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the U.S. from holding office. “Now given that the facts seem to be crystal clear that Trump was involved to some extent in the insurrection that took place on January 6th, the sole remaining question is whether American jurists who swear an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution upon their entry to the bench, will choose to follow the letter of the Constitution in this case,” the lawsuit says, also citing Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. Legal experts say it’s an uphill battle to argue in court, since the amendment has hardly been exercised in modern history. “Realistically, it’s not a Hail Mary, but it’s just tossing the ball up and hoping it lands in the right place,” Charles Zelden, a professor of history and legal studies at Nova Southeastern University, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
archive link to South Florida Sun Sentinel article: https://archive.ph/1BntD
Malice isn’t what needs to be proven. I’ll get voted down for saying this but it’s far from proven that trump “engaged in insurrection”.
He just did everything he could to encourage it and then watched on TV for over an hour giddy that it was happening, refusing to make a statement to call them off, when everyone he knew was begging him to. Yep totally innocent.
Stop it. I’m not defending Trump.
How do you think the legal system works? The prosecutor just says “c’mon your honor he totally did it” and the judge and jury just say “yep, totally”?
I think the legal system works exactly that way for poor/black people but for white people you buy your way out of jail.
Probably because that’s been demonstrated a seemingly infinite number of times
And yeah what you wrote was a textbook defense, no only in the legal sense but in an everyday sense too.
What about rebellion?
The term you are looking for is mens rea and from what we already know from the January 6th committee, Jack Smith has Trump dead to rights in that respect.
He also almost certainly has additional evidence that the committee didn’t get and that we don’t know about yet.
It’s not looking good for Trump which is exactly why he’s desperate to delay the trial until after the election in hopes that he wins and can make it all go away.
I’m surprised I even have to say this as I thought it was common knowledge regardless of one’s political persuasion.
Also, I didn’t downvote your comment.