The Democrats’ latest attempt to weaponize law to make Donald Trump unelectable — or broke — during the 2024 election cycle heads to the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday. When Trump was first elected, the Democrats stated that their goal was to “kick him in the a**” as well as “keep Trump unpopular.” Every new lawsuit filed against Trump has the opposite effect.
The Democrats still hope to get Trump. On Thursday, the Supreme Court will be at the center of their Get Trump circus. The Democrats’ hope is in the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling that Trump must be removed from the ballot due to the court’s opinion that he is an “insurrectionist.”
Democrats in Colorado and Maine, as well as other states, claim that Donald Trump is an “insurrectionist”, who led an armed revolt against the U.S. Government on January 6, 2021. If the highest court of the United States seriously examines the issue of insurrection, and Trump is presumed to be an “insurrectionist,” he may be permanently banned from running for office by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Legal scholars believe it is unlikely that this will happen because the 14th Amendment does not cover a president. We’ll get to that shortly.
The former President has never been accused, let alone found guilty of insurrection. Nancy Pelosi and her team put together a “visceral” argument to impeach Trump in the second sham impeachment. They used videos, tweets from Trump, including one where he told people to leave, and news reports. We all know that these are reliable sources for first drafts of history. Trump was not found guilty in the Senate.
Jack Smith, the Special Counsel for Trump, has never accused him of insurrection.
However, the case of Donald J. Trump v. Norma Anderson et. al. before the Supreme Court may never reach that point.
People like this woman, who attempted to remove Trump from the Washington State ballot in the last month, think that the Colorado Supreme Court has fired the starter pistol to all other states so they can get Trump off of the ballot.
She/her Frankie Ithaka is the brains behind the effort to Dump Trump from the #Washington primary ballot. This Washington resident who reportedly teaches college in California (remotely), was told how to get Trump off the ballot by the SoS who appeared on a radio show.
Note: She… pic.twitter.com/nNjPz8IGgf— Victoria Taft, The Adult in the Room, FITF Squad (@VictoriaTaft) January 17, 2024
Here’s a surprise for those of you who haven’t been following this issue closely. The left will never see their Get Insurrectionist Trump moments, despite all their wish-casting.
Many legal scholars have argued that the 14th Amendment’s Section 3 does not even cover presidents.
Michael Mukasey, former Attorney General of the United States, writes in The Wall Street Journal about the “seriously misplaced” faith the left has in the insurrection provision. Mukasey claims that Trump’s “insurrectionist” status can only be determined after two questions are answered.
Much attention has been paid to whether or not the attack on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2020, was “insurrection” or “rebellion” and if it was, if Mr. Trump “engaged”, in that act. These questions will not be answered until we answer two legal questions: Is the office of the president an “office”? Was the presidential oath taken by Mr. Trump on Jan. 20, 2016, to support the Constitution “as a United States officer”?
Mukasey argues that the President is not an “office” as defined by the 14th Amendment.
In U.S.v. Mouat, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in 1888 that “unless an individual working for the government is a.. A position is held by appointment. In Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, Chief Justice John Roberts reiterated the same point: “The people don’t vote for the “Officers of the United States.”
Steven Calabrisi is a constitutional scholar who has argued in the Volokh Conspiracy of Reason Magazine, that the 14th Amendment was drafted in response to the Civil War – an actual armed rebellion.
Section 3 of Amendment 14 was intentionally edited to remove the words “President” and “Vice President”. The disqualification of vice-presidential and presidential electors for “insurrection” or rebellion, along with this, makes it clear the Framers of Section 3 didn’t intend it to apply to Presidents or Vice Presidents who engage in insurrection.
[…]This is confirmed in the Appointments Clause, Article II, Section 2 which states that [The President nominates, and the Senate, with its advice and consent, appoints Ambassadors, other Public Ministers and Consuls, Judges at the Supreme Court and all other Officers.” The President doesn’t appoint himself, so he can’t be an officer of the United States according to the Appointments Clause.
[…] Moreover, Article II, Section 3, the Commission clause, states that “[T]he President shall” i.e. The President must “Commission All Officers of the United States.” Before or after the Fourteenth Amendment, no President or Vice President has ever been commissioned. For this clause, the President is not an officer of the United States.
On Thursday, dozens of amicus briefs (friend of the court) were filed by all parties. Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump’s ex-rival, argues in one of the briefs that the president does not qualify as an “officer,” as defined by Section 3. He said that Democrats have “resorted to antidemocratic tactics because they doubt they can defeat him in a free and fair election.” He argues that if the U.S. Supreme Court approves Colorado’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment, it will “warp incentives for state officials and voters alike.”
In a second brief, the Public Interest Legal Foundation argued that “rebellion and the lack of any implementing legislation from Congress providing enforcement” were to blame. These questions are crucial, as the states shouldn’t add additional qualifications to the U.S. Constitution.
The Colorado Republican State Central Committee argued the 14th Amendment grants Congress the power to disqualify presidential candidates, and not the Colorado Supreme Court. It also argues the 14th Amendment does not “self-execute.”
Richard Epstein, a libertarian constitutional expert, agrees with this view, calling the argument of self-execution “a red herring”, and expressing the hope that the Supreme Court, when it takes up the case, “should not rule on the merits because any court shouldn’t decide the entire controversy.”
This would ruin the fun of the lawfare crowd who created this circus.
CREW is one of several organizations David Brock fought for to defeat Trump. This “government accountability” organization is behind the 14th Amendment campaign. Brock tried to impeach Trump in 2017 with his infamous memo about how to “kick Trump’s a **,”.
