As if a quartet of criminal indictments was not enough evidence of a conspiracy to keep former President Donald Trump from securing a second term in the White House, an ongoing ploy to use the Constitution’s 14th Amendment against him makes the anti-Trump agenda perfectly clear.
A bipartisan group is currently pursuing the dubious legal argument that Trump’s words and actions in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election amounted to a violation of his oath of office and thus disqualify him from future political office.
Trump, several of his key allies, and a number of legal experts have already dismissed the notion that his behavior in any way violated the 14th Amendment.
As the effort against him starts to spread across the nation, his legal team is getting involved.
Specifically, a court filing from attorney Geoffrey Blue asserted that the then-president’s First Amendment rights offered sufficient protection for him to publicly question the outcome of the election.
“At no time do Petitioners argue that President Trump did anything other than engage in either speaking or refusing to speak for their argument that he engaged in the purported insurrection,” he wrote.
Furthermore, Blue argued that the 14th Amendment only applies to individuals who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion,” not those who “instigated” such a response as the lawsuits against Trump claim.
'Absurd, Dangerous, Unconstitutional': Alan Dershowitz Challenges Professors to Constitutional Debate
Dershowitz contests the push to use the 14th Amendment to bar Trump from future ballots, calling it a misinterpretation and unconstitutional.
“… the 14th amendment was… pic.twitter.com/o9Z7zarPIf
— UngaTheGreat (@UngaTheGreat) September 2, 2023
“Sulking in the Oval Office does not make Trump a seditionist,” wrote Fox News channel legal analyst Jonathan Turley. “Indeed, despite formal articles of the second impeachment and years of experts insisting that Trump was guilty of incitement and insurrection, Special Counsel Jack Smith notably did not charge him with any such crime. The reason is obvious. The evidence and constitutional standards would not have supported a charge of incitement or insurrection.”
The former president took to social media earlier this month to address the plan to have him removed from ballots in certain states, arguing that “almost all legal scholars have voiced opinions that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis or standing relative to the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election.”
As he has asserted in response to his ongoing criminal cases, Trump described this effort to thwart his bid for a second term as “election interference.”
