The Undemocratic Party got a stinging rebuke from the Supreme Court on Monday, as the coordinated lawfare effort to remove Donald Trump from state ballots was sent down in flames.
The Supreme Court unanimously decided in a rare 9-0 ruling that states do not have the jurisdiction to exclude federal candidates under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. However, the nation’s highest court also decided that the Congress does have authority to decide who can run for the nation’s highest office.
Undeterred, House Democrats have now resurrected legislation to remove Donald Trump from state ballots by labeling him an “insurrectionist.”
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“I am working with a number of my colleagues, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA), to revive legislation that we had to set up a process by which we could determine that someone who committed insurrection is disqualified by Section 3 of the 14th amendment,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD).
Rep. Raskin then claimed that Trump was already impeached by the House for “insurrection.”
“The House of Representatives already impeached Donald Trump for participating in insurrection by inciting it,” he added. “The question is whether Speaker Mike Johnson would allow us to bring this to the floor of the House.”
However, the process of impeachment in the House of Representatives only submits charges against an office-holder. It is tantamount to an indictment, whereby the accused is innocent until proven guilty. The trial then moves to the Senate, and in Donald Trump’s case, he was acquitted.
This is the Constitutional process for adjudicating high crimes and misdemeanors for a sitting president.
The Congressional effort to eliminate Donald Trump from state ballots by passing legislation to refer to him as an “insurrectionist” is doomed to fail, as one can glean from a cursory analysis of the relevant Constitutional provisions.
Here is the relevant text of the 14th amendment:
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
One should note that the phrasing of the 14th amendment does not specifically mention the Office of the Presidency; it does, however, mention several other offices. Therefore, we can conclude due to the “savings clause” that the 14th Amendment is not relevant to the presidency. As explained in a Substack post by Great American Mail:
At the outset, it is clear that it does not apply to the office of the President because that office is not named in the opening sentence delineating those offices to which it applies. As one would expect of demagogues, neither Tribe nor Luttig, nor any other legal “scholar” making the argument bother to quote the Amendment itself. By failing to do so, they save themselves of having to grabble with the unassailable argument that no one in 1868 intended to disqualify any Civil War combatant from running and becoming President. One could imagine a myriad of reasons why this office (and the Supreme Court) were excluded, but the reasons are not relevant for our purposes here. In fact, the opening sentence plainly excludes the office of the President.
The House Democrats are thus seeking to violate former President Donald Trump’s executive immunity, place him in double jeopardy, and all while passing an ex post facto law.
This is a lawless party that has no respect for the U.S. Constitution or due process. It will burn America’s institutions to the ground in an effort to take down a single politician — Donald Trump.
