Why We Need To Disqualify This Reprehensible Stain On Our Democracy, Leave No Weapon For Maga Crazies

The unimaginative MAGA morons are without wisdom or clarity of thought—tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye. The twice justified impeachment of Trump fell on the deaf ears of Senate Republicans who were too frightened and power-hungry to vote with a conscience they have long ago discarded. The plan now is to impeach Joe Biden—for God knows what. Substance of allegations doesn’t matter to people like the Speaker In Name Only (SINO)—it’s getting even that counts. How ineffectual and how much time and money are wasted is inconsequential.

The applicability of the 14th Amendment to Trump’s candidacy continues to be discussed and considered. Section 3 of the Amendment prevents anyone who has taken an Oath for federal, state or military service from holding office if he/she has been engaged in an insurrection or rebellion or given aid or comfort to the enemies of our Constitutional Democracy.

Recently, a renowned law professor and a retired, federal judge of note have concluded that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires that Donald Trump be disqualified from holding any state or federal office, including the presidency of the United States.  Both men are highly respected. Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School is America’s greatest constitutional law scholar. Most practicing lawyers would agree with that statement and revere him. Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig is particularly respected in Republican circles, as a distinctly conservative scholar. These two treasures of our democracy come from different political viewpoints, yet agree that the 14^th Amendment applies to Trump. There is nothing more important than saving our country from authoritarian rule. Two other conservative scholars drew the same conclusion in a law review article in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.  Both are members of the ultra-conservative Federalist Society, an elite group that wouldn’t have me as a member.  Both are law professors, William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen, of the University of St. Thomas.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868. In the post-Civil War era, our ancestors lived with the possibility that a further threat to our Republic could occur requiring us to be protected against any official who betrays his/her oath of office.

Many of us are trying to grasp how such disqualifications would work. Many lawyers and retired lawyers (like me) struggle to understand disqualification without a criminal conviction. Yet, the 14th Amendment is silent on a requirement for criminal conduct.

The scholars answer that there is a distinction between disqualification from office and jail time. If no conviction of a serious crime, a felony, is required, what is to prevent the knuckleheads of retaliation from attempting to disqualify every Democrat in the country? Trailer-trash like Margorie Taylor Greene would relish the opportunity.

If that were the outcome, we would have all shot ourselves in the foot, destroying our own democracy.

Most are starting to agree that if State Secretaries of State were to declare Trump disqualified as a presidential candidate, law suits would ultimately take it to the Supreme Court where we have a Trump-weighted Court that could exonerate the twice impeached, 4 times indicted low-life who would dismantle our three branches of government and its checks and balances. Finding Trump qualified would be the final disgrace for Chief Justice Roberts and would be the demise of our country as we know it.

IF we got that far, I believe the Supreme Court would uphold Trump’s disqualification. With the exception of the ethically deficient Clarence Thomas, I believe the other eight Justices, including those who were crammed down our throats in the Trump/Moscow Mitch years, would not allow the Constitution to be so horribly diminished.

Would we then be left with politically motivated, never-ending disqualifications? I don’t believe that to be the outcome.

Let’s start with how would any Secretary of State in a blue state, for example, justify disqualifying Trump’s candidacy? Since Section 3 of the 14th Amendment doesn’t tell us how we should proceed, a disqualification must rely upon known facts—irrefutable facts that cannot be denied.

First, to trigger the provision, there must be an insurrection or rebellion. The general interpretation of an insurrection is a violent uprising or organized resistance against the government or its regulations.

January 6,2021 was an insurrection. Irrefutable facts:

1)    Violence against police, assault and battery, resulting in the death of an officer and serious injury to others;

2)    Stalking Congress people and Senators, especially Vice President Pence, to assault or hang him from a make-shift gallows and Speaker Pelosi to assault her or worse;

3)      Breaking and entering;

4)      Destruction of property, defecation in our nation’s Capital;

5)      Organized assault on the Capital to forcibly obstruct execution of the Electoral Count Act;

6)      Violation of the 12th Amendment (concerning electoral votes);

7)      Six proven leaders of the Capital assault found guilty of Seditious Conspiracy, an effort to overthrow the U.S. government or block or use force to oppose any law of the U.S.

The insurrection is on video, the violence is palpably real, the threats to elected officials is  unmistakable and we now have guilty verdicts on many insurrectionists, especially two Oath Keepers and four Proud Boys found guilty of Seditious Conspiracy., an effort to overthrow the U.S. government or forcibly obstruct the execution of the Electoral Count Act.

Then-President Trump irrefutably gave aid and comfort to the enemy force that attacked the Capital

1)      Trump told the crowd that “we fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore;”

2)      Despite Trump’s defense that his fight like hell comments were figurative, the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and others did fight viciously;

3)      Trump refused to tell the insurrectionists to stop for 187 minutes, watching the violence on TV in the White House dining room and ignoring the pleas of Congress people and Senators for Trump to call off his dogs;

4)      A Pentagon official called Trump to coordinate a response to the assault and the call went unanswered.  According to a White House lawyer, “The President did not want anything done;”

5)      Finally, after the insurrection had failed, Trump reluctantly asked the rioters to leave, telling them that he loved them (a remarkable amount of comfort to violent rioters) and reiterated that the election had been stolen from him;

6)      The rioters promptly left the Capital, obeying orders from Trump;

7)      Trump promised the convicted traitors that he would pardon them.

Trump’s inaction clearly constitutes aiding and abetting the insurrection as well as cozy comfort. He allowed the rioters plenty of time to trash our Capital, seek out elected officials to assault, especially Vice President Pence and Speaker Pelosi to assault or murder. Trump further aided the insurrection by holding off Pentagon intervention.

All of the above is already proven and most of it is on video. Trump was the instigator of the J 6 violent attack. It is, however, more challenging evidentially but also unnecessary. He is a clear, irrefutable aider and abettor. That, alone, disqualifies him for any elected office in the country.

Try as the MAGA crazies may, it is only Trump and his characterless minions who engage in insurrections. An insurrection is a necessary component to a 14^th Amendment disqualification. Go back to the trailer and have a few snorts, Margorie.

Disqualifications, however, are not limited to Trump. There are others who have aided and abetted the insurrection effort, certainly including the fake electors who were important to Trump after he had exhausted all his legitimate remedies in 60 law suits which all failed. Congress people and Senators sought to do their part in the insurrection. Led by Ted Cruz, he and those listed below, demanded a 10-day delay in the electoral count pending an “audit.” This delay, no doubt well-known to Cruz and the others below, was the fallback strategy to then introduce fake Trump electors to confuse state elector counts and keep Trump in the Oval office. Those co-conspirators led by Cruz signed a joint statement refusing to vote for the elector count unless the 10-day delay was agreed upon. These unindicted co-conspirators are: Cruz, Johnson, Lankford, Daines, Kennedy, Blackburn, Braun, Lummis, Marshall, Hagerty, Tuberville and Hawley. A disgraceful lot. One and all.