Getting Nervous? Dems Explore Using Obscure Section of Constitution to Ban Trump from Office

(C. Douglas Golden, The Western Journal) Look out, America: Every liberal who’s earned a constitutional law degree from Twitter University in the past few years is about to use their newfound knowledge of our founding document to disqualify a lot of Republicans from office — including former President Donald Trump.

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Source – The Federalist Papers

by C. Douglas Golden, The Western Journal, January 7th, 2022

Unfortunately, however, it’s not just the armchair legal savants. Several reports that appeared on Thursday — the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot — indicated some Democrats are exploring ways to keep Trump off the ballot in 2024 by appealing to an obscure Civil War-era provision of the 14th Amendment.

It’s something we’ve heard floated before — and we’ve been covering these rumblings for some time here at The Western Journal. Now that the left seems more serious than ever about weaponizing a poisoned interpretation of the Constitution against the GOP before the 2022 midterms, we need all the help we can get in fighting them. You can help us in our fight by subscribing.

That provision, meant to apply to former Confederate officials who had previously taken an oath to the United States and subsequently “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” forbids those individuals from holding “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State.”

In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, some Democrats had floated using Section 3 against wide swaths of Republicans, including some suggestions that any GOP legislator who voted against certifying the results might fall under the aegis of a provision clearly meant for former Confederates or others in the future who would similarly engage in active insurrection or rebellion against the United States.

“If anything, the idea has waxed and waned,” liberal Harvard Law School constitutional expert Laurence Tribe told The Hill. “I hear it being raised with considerable frequency these days both by media commentators and by members of Congress and their staffs, some of whom have sought my advice on how to implement Section 3.”

These members, alas, aren’t outliers or cranks.

Among the dozen Democrats The Hill said have talked about invoking Section 3 publicly or privately include, for starters, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, January 6 House Select Committee member and former Trump impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and former Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Raskin, after Trump’s acquittal by the Senate last February, said the former president was “right in the bullseye middle of that group” covered by Section 3, telling ABC News “he really does fulfill exactly the constitutional prohibition there.”

“Presumably, it could be done both affirmatively and defensively,” he continued. “People — you know if he tried to run for office again — people could try to stop him in the states. It also conceivably could be an affirmative statement by state legislators, by Congress, by other institutions.

“So we’d have to figure it out and do some more research about all of that, but the point is that the constitutional purpose is clear, to keep people exactly like Donald Trump and other traitors to the union from holding public office.”

Raskin didn’t comment when contacted by The Hill, nor did Nadler. As for Wasserman Schultz, she said, “I continue to explore all legal paths to ensure that the people who tried to subvert our democracy are not in charge of it.”

In October, a Rolling Stone piece which claimed — via two anonymous sources — that Republican members of Congress or their staffs had coordinated with Jan. 6 rally organizers drew calls from Democrats to have them expelled for insurrection. The piece didn’t claim they had anything to do with the riot, mind you, and all of the organizing was lawful, but that didn’t stop anybody:

Meanwhile, Marc Elias — the Democrats’ top election lawyer and the man who, among other things, helped finance the Steele dossier — has talked about disqualifying House members through Section 3, possibly even via litigation.

And then there was the anniversary of Jan. 6, which gave rise to no shortage of think-pieces about Section 3. Most of them had to deal with the legislature — “To Avert Another January 6, Expel Coup Plotters From Congress,” John Nichols wrote at The Nation — but Trump might be an easier target if the left really wants a Section 3 test run.

“Some scholars believe that Congress, by a simple majority in both chambers, could act on its own to find Trump engaged in insurrection, which would implicate the constitutional provision. Under the 14th Amendment, restoring Trump’s eligibility would then require a supermajority vote,” The Hill reported.

“Other experts, like Tribe of Harvard, say Congress would need to go further, either by establishing a neutral fact-finding body to determine whether Trump engaged in insurrection under Section 3, or assigning that fact-finding role to a federal court.”

On that front, Tennessee Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen introduced a bill last year that would allow the attorney general to put the case before a three-judge panel that could disqualify Trump from holding further office.

The group’s president said they were willing to take the case to court.

There are two reasons why Section 3 and how it relates to Jan. 6, 2021, is no longer a parlor game.

The first is that the man who was certified as the winner of the Electoral College in the early hours of Jan. 7, 2021, has had a particularly bad year.

Second, not only does this vindicate much of Trump’s management of the crisis during his final year in office, it makes him the prohibitive favorite in 2024. If he decides to run, it would be a difficult climb for any Republican to best him in a primary challenge. The events of Jan. 6 and what preceded it do provide some baggage to Trump, yes — but if four years of Joe Biden look like the first year, that’s not baggage that can’t be overcome.

Make no mistake: The Democrats are nervous. That’s why an obscure portion of the Constitution meant to deal with former Confederate officials is likely to be repurposed so that “insurrection” now amounts to challenging electoral results via lawful means. We’ll see how far that goes.

Stillness in the Storm Editor: Why did we post this?

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Not sure how to make sense of this? Want to learn how to discern like a pro? Read this essential guide to discernment, analysis of claims, and understanding the truth in a world of deception: 4 Key Steps of Discernment – Advanced Truth-Seeking Tools.

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Source:

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/getting-nervous-dems-explore-using-obscure-section-constitution-ban-trump-office