Is this a sign that the Left is panicking about Trump, or is just the mere thought of him running again and potentially becoming president again too much to tolerate? It’s the trigger of all triggers for liberal America, and it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that these new legal theories about how Donald Trump can’t serve as president again are popping up as more corroborating evidence in the Biden bribery scandal is unveiled.
The Atlantic had a piece on it, as did The Hill. The anti-Trump legal intelligentsia is firmly behind the laughable assumption that Trump is prohibited from serving as president of the United States over the January 6 event, which they view as seditious. Section III of the 14th Amendment is about to have its time in the sun (via The Hill):
Last week, law professors William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas — both members of the conservative Federalist Society — argued in a law review article that Trump is already constitutionally forbidden from serving in public office because of Section Three of the 14th Amendment.
This section, also known as the Disqualification Clause, bars from office any government officer who takes an oath to defend the Constitution and then engages in or aids an insurrection against the United States. Only a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress can act to remove such disability.
It should not come as a surprise that Trump meets this standard. All three branches of the government have identified the attack on the Capitol as an insurrection, with multiple federal judges, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate, as well as the bipartisan Jan. 6 House select committee, citing Trump as its central cause.
As Baude and Paulsen note, “Section Three requires no prior criminal-law conviction, for treason or any other defined crime, as a prerequisite for its disqualification to apply.” Trump’s indictment by special counsel Jack Smith for election-related crimes only further bolsters the case for his constitutional disqualification.
Those federal criminal charges include conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights by attempting to “oppress, threaten or intimidate” people in their free exercise and enjoyment of their right to vote.
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So what? Some lawyers claim that their interpretation of what this section says doesn’t make it correct or the law of the land. It’s a legal opinion. Would you like to know how many legal analyses claim the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to personal gun ownership? There are numerous ones—all of which are incorrect. You can be wrong in this country; that’s a right under the First Amendment. This legalese is inside-the-beltway jargon that is too esoteric, for lack of a better term, to have any meaning among the electorate. The fact that this had to be dredged up due to lack of precedent in this capacity doesn’t bode well, nor does the indictment from Jack Smith, which seems to be based on voodoo magic: Trump is charged with what he thought and when. Trying someone’s state of mind is hard enough, and a lot of Smith’s charges fall under areas that are constitutionally protected free speech. It’s also not a crime to take bad legal advice.
For many of us, we all see what the real agenda is here. The recent Trump indictments are a liberal flanking maneuver that warns any Republican campaign that the federal government and other like-minded prosecutors will be unleashed on them if they pursue recounts in future elections. Recounts are part of the process and are legal. That’s the chill factor here.
Also, Trump isn’t dropping out because some lawyers said something. That’s another knee-slapper.
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