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
Don’t ignore the fact that it was fought in the courts for decades to get where we are now.
Now we have an amendment that hasn’t been tested in the courts because no president has been enough of a corrupt, fascist, scumbag to require its use. So, it’s going to have to go through the courts.
I only hope someone in every state brings a case.
That’s my hope as well. All it takes is for Trump to be removed from the ballot in one or two swing states to have him lose the election.
(Just to be clear to the studio audience, I’m not in favor of “rigging” the system on a technicality so Republicans lose / Democrats win. This is a matter of keeping a criminal defendant insurrectionist and mis-handler of highly classified information out of perhaps the most powerful position in the world.)
For my part, I’m done trying to be civil with the opposition. They don’t want to play fair, they don’t want democracy to survive, and they want to see the people I care about die.
The Republican party exists today to burn the world down. They have to be destroyed or we’re all lost.