Hearings began is week in Colorado and Minnesota on whether the 14th Amendment disqualifies Trump from running for president in 2024 because of Jan. 6

Hearings began this week on whether the 14th Amendment disqualifies Donald Trump from running for president in 2024 because of his actions around the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

On Monday morning in Denver, a historic five-day evidentiary hearing began for a lawsuit filed against Trump by six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters represented by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

A similar hearing is set for Thursday in Minneapolis.

CREW President Noah Bookbinder has said that his organization brought its suit in Colorado because “it is necessary to defend our republic both today and in the future.” The group’s complaint accuses Trump of inciting and aiding the mob at the Capitol two years ago, which he denies. He was impeached on similar charges but acquitted by Republicans in the Senate.

  • Fondots@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 year ago

    The part of the 14th amendment that would bar someone from being president for engaging in insurrection is worded kind of similarly to article II where it lays out qualifications for president

    No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

    Compare that to

    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.

    You don’t need to be convicted of not being a natural-born citizen to be barred from being president, and in fact you can’t, it’s not a crime. And neither do you need to be convicted of insurrection. These clauses in the Constitution stand on their own.

    So a conviction for something isn’t necessary for someone to be barred from office for that thing.

    The Constitution could just as easily say “No person shall be president who has worn socks with sandals.” That doesn’t mean wearing socks with sandals is illegal, just that you can’t be president if you’ve done it. You can’t be convicted of it because it’s not a crime (fashion crimes aren’t actually crimes.)

    Of course if it was illegal, a conviction or lackthereof could certainly be brought up to support or oppose any challenge to whether someone is qualified, and while a conviction would certainly be pretty damn compelling evidence, it still may not necessarily make or break the argument in either direction because we live in a world of legal loopholes, weird precedents, and government officials exercising their discretion however they see fit.