Below is a slightly expanded version of my column in The Hill on the increasingly popular theory that former president Donald Trump is already barred from office under the 14th Amendment. It is a theory that, in my view, has a political appeal that outstrips its constitutional support. In a constitution designed to protect free speech and prevent the concentration of power, this theory would allow for the banning of candidates based on fluid definitions of aiding and abetting insurrection. Such ballot cleansing is common in countries like Iran where citizens await to learn which opposition candidates will be allowed to run. While we are thankfully far from the authoritarianism of these other countries, the implications of this theory for our constitutional system are still chilling.
Here is the column:
The popularity of urban legends is a testament to the will to believe. The desire of people to keep Elvis alive or prove that a Sasquatch could exist furtively in our backyards shows the resilience of fables.
Constitutional urban legends often have an even more immediate appeal and tend to arise out of the desperation of divided times. One of the most popular today is that former President Donald Trump can be barred from office, even if he is not convicted in any of the four indictments he faces, under a long-dormant clause of the 14th Amendment.
This 14th Amendment theory is something that good liberals will read to their children at night. It goes something like this: Donald Trump can never be president again, because the 14th Amendment bars those who previously took federal oaths from assuming office if they engaged in insurrection or rebellion. With that, and a kiss on the forehead, a progressive’s child can sleep peacefully through the night.
But don’t look under the bed. For as scary as it might sound to some, Trump can indeed take office if he is elected…even if he is convicted. Indeed, he can serve as president even in the unlikely scenario that he is sentenced to jail.
Democrats have long pushed this theory about the 14th Amendment as a way of disqualifying not only Trump but also dozens of Republican members of Congress. For some, it is the ultimate Hail Mary pass if four indictments, roughly 100 criminal charges and more than a dozen opposing candidates fail to get the job done.
I have strongly rejected this interpretation for years, so it is too late to pretend that I view this as a plausible argument. However, some serious and smart people take an equally strong position in support of the theory. Indeed, conservative scholars William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen have argued for the interpretation and insist in a recent law review article that “the case is not even close. All who are committed to the Constitution should take note and say so.”
But some of us like to believe that we are committed to the Constitution and, for that same reason, we say no.
While I have great respect for these academics, I simply fail to see how the text, history or purpose of the 14th Amendment even remotely favors this view. Despite the extensive research of Baude and Paulsen, their analysis ends where it began: Was January 6 an insurrection or rebellion?
I have previously addressed the constitutional basis for this claim. It is, in my view, wildly out of sync with the purpose of the amendment, which followed an actual rebellion, the Civil War.
Democrats have previously sought to block certification of Republican presidents and Democratic lawyers have challenged elections, including on totally unsupported claims of machines flipping the results. If we are to suddenly convert the 14th Amendment into a running barrier to those who seek to challenge election results, then we have to establish a bright line to distinguish such cases.
The 14th Amendment bars those who took the oath and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.” It then adds that that disqualification can extend to those who have “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” According to these experts, Jan. 6 was an “insurrection” and Trump gave “aid and comfort” to those who engaged in it by spreading election fraud claims and not immediately denouncing the violence.
But even the view that it was an “insurrection” is by no means a consensus. Polls have shown that most of the public view Jan. 6 for what it was: a protest that became a riot. One year after the riot, CBS News mostly downplayed and ignored the result of its own poll showing that 76 percent viewed it for what it was, as a “protest gone too far.” The view that it was an actual “insurrection” was far less settled, with almost half rejecting the claim, a division breaking along partisan lines.
The theory that this was a rebellion or insurrection has always been highly contested. On Jan. 6, I was contributing to the coverage and denounced Trump’s speech while he was still giving it. But as the protest increased in size, some of us noted that we had never seen such a comparatively light level of security precautions, given the weeks of coverage anticipating the protest. We then watched as thinly deployed police barriers were overrun and a riot ensued. It was appalling, and most of us denounced it as it was unfolding.
Trump waited to speak, despite criticism from many of us. We now know that many aides called for him to call upon his supporters to pull back, but he waited for a couple hours.
Sulking in the Oval Office does not make Trump a seditionist. 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.
Yet these experts still believe that Trump can be barred from office without any such charge even being brought, let alone a conviction. Just judicial fiat that certain challenges were made in bad faith or were rebellious in character.
There is no limiting principle to avoid a slippery slope of partisan disqualifications. Would Trump not be disqualified if he had called for his supporters to withdraw an hour earlier?
Would it have been disqualifying if the security was stronger (as suggested days earlier) and there was no entry into the Capitol?
Putting aside the lack of evidence, there is a lack of logic to these claims. A relatively small number of individuals have been charged with seditious conspiracy, a widely misrepresented charge that can amount to as little as preventing the execution of any law (as opposed to outright rebellion or insurrection).
If Trump supported a rebellion or insurrection, what was the plan? Not only did Smith not charge him with any such crime, but there was little evidence that even the most radical defendants charged were planning to overthrow the nation’s government or were part of a broader conspiracy. There were no troops standing by, no plan for a post-democratic takeover by Trump or his alleged minions. The courts had already ruled against the President and would likely continue to do so. Many congressional Republicans had already joined Democrats in supporting certification and would continue to do so. Military leaders had already said that they would support the transition and would continue to do so.
Trump was clearly not willing to concede. According to some witnesses, there was a despondent and defiant president who may have gotten satisfaction from the chaos in Congress. Yet, even halting the certification, would not stop the certification or result in the seizure of the government.
That leaves us with the argument that any effort to stop a constitutional process is akin to an insurrection or rebellion under the 14th Amendment. If that were the standard, any protests — including the anti-Trump protests and the certification challenges to electoral votes in 2016 — could also be cited as disqualifying. If that were the case, figures such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md) could be summarily purged from office for having sought to overturn an election.
We would be left on a slippery slope, as partisan judges and members would seek to block opposing candidates from ballots, all supposedly in the name of protecting democracy.
There is a simpler and more obvious explanation for what occurred on Jan. 6, 2021: A political protest became a political riot, and a constitutional theory became constitutional legend.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.
I will comment on Will Baude’s and Michael Stokes Paulsen’s claims.
1. Baude and Paulsen claimed that 14th Amendment, Section 3 “covers a broad range of conduct against the authority of the constitutional order, including many instances of indirect participation or support”.
There is, of course, no support for their interpretation. To the contrary, Article I of the Constitution defines treason as waging war on the United States, or providing aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. The reason for specifying what treason is was because nations in Europe were infamously known for adopting broad, sweeping definitions of treason. By narrowly defining treason, the authors of the Constitution sought to limit the abuse.
Section 3 simply disqualifies people for insurrection; it does not redefine insurrection to include a broad range of conduct.
2. Baude and Paulsen claimed that 14th Amendment Section 3 is self-executing. . No, it is not. In fact, Section 5 plainly reads “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” Indeed, in the context of providing a remedy for equal protection violations, Congress had provided federal courts jurisdiction, and of course, continued to provide the Supreme Court jurisdiction to review state court judgments on federal law issues, which now include equal protection. It does not mean, for example, you could simply kill someone because you feel they had violated equal protection.
They claimed that state election officials could remove federal candidates from the ballot notwithstanding an express grant of authority either by a provision of the Constitution or Section 5 legislation. But why does it stop there.
If it is self-executing, anyone can enforce this provision. A person who just signed an enlistment contract with the United States Marine Corps and took the opath of enlistment could, under their view, feel that FJB provided aid or comfort to the Taliban by botching the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and, as such, could legally depose FJB from office.
But would this not be mutiny and likely a whole host of UCMJ offenses? The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and, under the Baude/Paulsen interpretation of the Constitution, a Marine private would have the authority to depose FJB no matter what the inferior UCMJ reads.
If a freshly-enlisted person decided to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, are Baude and Pualsen willing to represent that enlistee pro bono if the enlistee is court-martialed for mutiny?
The Left alleges that Trump attempted “to subvert an election.”
The Left’s blinkered view of reality is astounding:
For the 2020 election: The “spies who lie.” The media who colluded with them. Zuckerbucks. Law enforcement and bureaucrats censoring dissent on social media. Voting procedures that amount to: Vote whenever you want and however you wish.
All (and more) to “subvert an election.”
And now for 2024: Politicize the law to kneecap the leading political opponent. Make him toxic with swing voters. Float “legal” theories to bar him from ballots. Politicize the law to intimidate his top supporters. Use a complicit media to bury HB’s corruption, and to hyperventilate that the (political) indictments are (yet again) “worse than Watergate.”
All to “subvert an election.”
Even if you hate Trump, the best thing for America, long term, would be a sweeping Trump victory against the Authoritarian Left on November 5, 2024.
Joe Biden is one of the most disgusting, pieces of corrupt, entitled sh*t to ever illegitimately be installed fraudulently into the White House. The man should be raked over the coals relentlessly by ALL the media today and every day. But they don’t bother, because he is a Democrat, and they are The Fake News. #Disgusting
On Maui today….
@joelpollak
JoeBiden just tried to relate to the bereaved residents of Lahaina, Maui, by recalling his own house fire. He said he nearly lost his home, including his prized Corvette. In reality, it was a small fire, confined to the kitchen, and was put out in 20 minutes.
FJB. Just FJB to h*ll and back.
The article in JTN documents why Trump should not have been impeached and Biden should have been along with being tried for corruption, bribery. and extortion.
https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/hdfeds-urged-biden-give-ukraine-loan-guarantee-he?utm_source=breaking&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter
Feds urged Biden to give aid to Ukraine before he held back to force Burismsa prosecutor’s firing
“Ukraine has made sufficient progress on its reform agenda to justify a third guarantee,” reads an Oct. 1, 2015, memo summarizing the recommendation of the Interagency Policy Committee (IPC) – a task force created to advise the Obama White House on whether Ukraine was cleaning up its endemic corruption and deserved more Western foreign aid.
The recommendation is one of several U.S. government memos gathered by Just the News over the last 36 months from Freedom of Information Act litigation, congressional inquiries and government agency sources that directly conflict with the long-held narrative that Biden was conducting official U.S. policy when he threatened to withhold a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee to force Ukraine to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, the country’s equivalent of the American attorney general….
The memos obtained by Just the News show:
Senior State Department officials sent a conflicting message to Shokin before he was fired, inviting his staff to Washington for a January 2016 strategy session and sent him a personal note saying they were “impressed” with his office’s work.
U.S. officials faced pressure from Burisma emissaries in the United States to make the corruption allegations go away and feared the energy firm had made two bribery payments in Ukraine as part of an effort to get cases settled.
A top U.S. official in Kyiv blamed Hunter Biden for undercutting U.S. anticorruption policy in Ukraine through his dealings with Burisma.
https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/hdfeds-urged-biden-give-ukraine-loan-guarantee-he?utm_source=breaking&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter
Subpoena Nancy Pelosi and put her under oath.
Turley:
“But even the view that it was an “insurrection” is by no means a consensus. Polls have shown that most of the public view Jan. 6 for what it was: a protest that became a riot. One year after the riot, CBS News mostly downplayed and ignored the result of its own poll showing that 76 percent viewed it for what it was, as a “protest gone too far.” The view that it was an actual “insurrection” was far less settled, with almost half rejecting the claim, a division breaking along partisan lines.”
Of course, 98% of those polled didn’t know what an insurrection is.
And you know this how?
Kyle Cheney: “NEW: Donald Trump is out on $200k bond in Georgia. He has also signed a set of witness intimidation restrictions that appear more exhaustive than the ones his codefendants have signed so far. His includes an explicit limit on social media intimidation.”
Good luck trying to silence a canidate running for President. SCOTUS will squash it within hours and ask for arguments.
(thats why you don’t charge candidates with none crimes.)
Witness intimidation is not protected speech.
He hasn’t intimidated any witness.
The issue here is the raw subjective nature of intimidation. Like Humpty Dumpty, it is what ever a judge feels like.
You’re hallucinating.
He consented to these terms, so he waived his 1st amendment rights.
Turley,
How can you have an insurrection if the only participants of the alleged incident were the police and Federal Agents mixed in with the crowd?
Can anyone name any insurrection in the 20th Century until now where those involved in the insurrection were unarmed?
Even in a bloodless coup, those involved in the coup are armed.
And there you have it.
If there was no insurrection, no underlying crime. Also if you take a transcript of what Trump said that day… how does a peaceful protest, which is the right of every American become an insurrection? Trump did call for peaceful protests. No incitement on his part.
-G
Except here, in reality, some J6 rioters/insurrectionists WERE armed:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/capitol-rioter-armed-gun-jan-6-found-guilty-charges-rcna80387
The Oath Keepers also had an arsenal ready for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to transform the Oath Keepers into a kind of militia to keep Trump in office.
121 people have been charged with using or carrying dangerous weapons, with 20 convictions.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/08/jan6-defendants-guns/
Perhaps it would help to get your news from someone other than Newsmax.
WaPo?
LOL…
Took them how many years to admit the laptop was real?
And of the 121… what were the weapons?
Again. How many of the thousands were armed?
Yeah, thought so.
The OP suggested 0 were armed. I responded to that. Christopher alberts admitted to having a gun. Others did as well whether you think 20 guns is not a big deal is your opinion but it is more than 0.
Having a gun and displaying it/using it are two different things. Only one gun was used that day, by a coward.
“Anonymous” clearly didn’t even read the articles he sites. From those articles:
“A spokesman for the D.C. police said there was no indication that any arrests were made or weapons confiscated on the basis of the people cited in radio transmissions played by the committee.”
” They said the guns were not loaded and were “just a symbol” of their Second Amendment rights. They were briefly detained but released once the guns were handed over to police.”
“Of the alleged rioters who approached the Capitol on Jan. 6, four have been charged with taking guns onto the Capitol grounds, and two of those have been convicted.”
“About 825 people have been charged federally in the Jan. 6 riot. Most have been charged with misdemeanor-type trespassing counts. Although only a handful have been charged with firearms violations, at least 121 people have been charged with using or carrying dangerous weapons, and about 20 have been found guilty, a Washington Post database shows.”
Out of almost a MILLION people at the PROTEST, only 20 were found guilty of carrying “dangerous weapons”. That’s 0.002%. A miraculously low number for an “insurrection”. The number of people armed that day would be hard pressed to take over a 7-11, much less the Capitol.
Also, note that not one single protester used a firearm illegally – they were carried there in pursuance of their 2nd Amendment right, and not a single protester shot anyone or shot anything. The only person shot was Ashley Babbitt, who was murdered by cowardly capitol police. But anonymous trolls gotta spew their propaganda!
You’re being ridiculous. The mob was not armed, and no individual who had a weapon used it against anyone.
To prove an insurrection you would have to prove that a group working together used a weapon AGAINST PENCE or, if Pence disqualified electoral votes (and this was deemed illegal) that they used force against those who disagreed with the faction’s claims that Pence’s actions were legal.
Be serious.
Christopher Alberta literally confessed to having a weapon. Do you have some news article which disproves his own admission?
Christopher Alberta literally isn’t the mob. What is wrong with you?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna94940
“A Jan. 6 rioter who was armed with a concealed weapon as he led a mob that overran police on the steps of the Capitol was sentenced to seven years in federal prison Wednesday.”
That’s literally the first sentence of the article about him.
Nbc news: who says texas makes electricity with crude oil.
There is no evidence this person exists, much less that he was convicted or sent to prison.
Thats ll bee debunked.
Wow, that was so easy
Well, I guess that ends that argument huh?
Anything reported you’ll just say IT WILL BE DEBUNKED or it’s AI generated?
How in fact can you engage in rationale debate with anyone?
Now you get it, dont you. These a$$hats discount reports all the tome because it doesnt come from their echo chamber and for no other reason. Too bad.
Christopher Alberts was not in the Capitol Building or near it. The Capitol grounds are extensive. He was not in the midst of those entering the building.
You get everything wrong and so do your sources that have been proven wrong on almost every significant incident involving Trump.
Because the washingtom post has proven itself so reliable in the past.
And nbc news thinks texas makes electricity from crude oil
Were there direct communications between them and Trump.
Jan 6th events were quite literally thousands of “mostly peaceful” citizens, “mostly peaceful”-ly assembling to practice their Right to petition their government to redress their grievances of a federal election after being denied such through the courts. No one was trying to overthrow the government to establish a new one, they, The People (remember them, the one’s paying the bills of the government itself?”, simply wanted their Congress to hear them and thoroughly investigate the most contested election the country has faced, to date. What’s a country to do when The People (apologies for being repetitive) are intentionally ignored by two of the three branches of their own government?
Professor Turley,
You have unwittingly made many of the conservatives on your blog fans of liberal, functionalist constitutional jurisprudence. William Baude and Michael Paulsen made a strong originalist, formalist argument for a self-executing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and your response is a classic liberal functionalist critique.
As originalists and textualists, they look to the original meaning of the clause as well as a textual interpretation of its drafting to show that it is self-executing. This means it is more similar to the self-executing requirement that public officeholders are 35 years old rather than the Treason Clause or the Impeachment provisions, which clearly delineate procedural hurdles that must be met before treason and “high crimes and misdemeanors” are determined.
Your response – which is essentially that it is hard to determine when insurrection has occurred and that, therefore, we should use criminal conviction as a functionalist standard to apply the Constitution’s language – is a classic liberal, progressive critique that is more common of Breyer than Scalia. This doesn’t make it wrong, but I think it is important for your readers to know that they are siding more with a Breyer-style reading of the Constitution rather than one championed by Scalia and his originalist henchmen.
What is it with you and this self-executing stuff? That isn’t relevant unless there was an insurrection. But there wasn’t, as your boys Paulsen and Baude make clear.
Have they said or written anything whether or not FJB’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan constituted aid or comfort to the Taliban, and this, disqualifies FJB?
Baude and Paulsen claimed that 14th Amendment, Section 3 “covers a broad range of conduct against the authority of the constitutional order, including many instances of indirect participation or support”.
There is, of course, no support for their interpretation. To the contrary, Article I of the Constitution defines treason as waging war on the United States, or providing aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. The reason for specifying what treason is was because nations in Europe were infamously known for adopting broad, sweeping definitions of treason. By narrowly defining treason, the authors of the Constitution sought to limit the abuse.
Section 3 simply disqualifies people for insurrection; it does not redefine insurrection to include a broad range of conduct.
Therefore, FJB’s botching of the Afghanistan withdrawal does not constitute aid or comfort to the Taliban, contrary to Baude’s and Paulsen’s argument.
Not sure I follow. The Treason Clause is not part of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. So how does reference to it make their claim with respect to the Fourteenth Amendment wrong?
(Article I of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment are not the same?)
Treason is narrowly defined.
There is no historical precedent for the defining insurrection as a “broad range of conduct against the authority of the constitutional order, including many instances of indirect participation or support”.
Are Baude and Paulsen willing to argue that raising money to pay bail for those who did rioting in Minneapolis, Portland, and Kenosha constiturtes insurrection?
Are they willing to argue that botching the withdrawal of Afghanistan constitutes insurrection?
“. If that were the case, figures such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md) could be summarily purged from office for having sought to overturn an election.”
Again, nuance and context. And Turley is being deliberately obtuse and analyzing everything in black and white. Sometimes the law needs just black and white, other times not.
Raskins is going on the record, but as you can see this is not an attempt to alter the election. It’s being duly noted. This is more than obvious and has been done MANY times in Congress by both sides in many elections. They did it to Obama. They did it to Trump in 2016. This is business as usual.
What happened in 2020 was not the same thing and had not been done before. It was OUTSIDE the norm and a case can be made it was illegal (hence the indictments).. Again, don’t think in a vacuum over isolated incidents – take in everything you know happened and apply it.
In other words, rules for thee but not rules for me.
We do know that John Podesta tried to alter the election by asking for an intelligence briefing for the electors.
“According to some witnesses, there was a despondent and defiant president who may have gotten satisfaction from the chaos in Congress.”
Turley just throws that out there like it’s really nothing. Meanwhile, people were killed. Including a Trump supporter. And the potential of what could have happened – who know? But yeah – Trump got his jollies off I suppose. No harm no foul. Just a lot of pushing and shoving in Congress.
I also think Turley’s article goes for just the events of Jan 6 – not the entire process from election day thru, well, stuff well into 2020 where Trump was still making a bid to overturn votes.
It would be really interesting to see what Turley’s reaction would have been if Obama or Biden could be substituted for Trump and we could experience the entire event all over again. I really do wonder.
@Bill,
I don’t think Turley’s position would change one iota.
Turley isn’t a fan of Trump. He’s a fan of the law.
-G
“people were killed. Including a Trump supporter.” What planet are you on? Everyone who died was a Trump supporter.
The riot was a crime.
The bid to overturn votes was not.
The left lives every day consumed with fear of free elections, free speech, conservative Christians. restrictions on killing unborn children, staying out of foreign wars. the enforcement of immigration laws, the enforcement of laws against violent crime, and a system of equal justice.
CONSUMED BY THE TOTAL FEAR OF FREEDOM AND DESIROUS OF WOMB-TO-THE-TOMB “CARE” (I.E. ENSLAVEMENT) BY “GOVERNMENT.”
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
They deny the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the American thesis: Freedom and Self-Reliance.
They espouse Karl Marx’s motto: “From each according to his ability (to pay taxes), to each according to his needs (goldbricking, dependency and parasitism).
Rather than freedom, they force the unconstitutional “dictatorship of the proletariat” on once-free Americans in the form of similarly unconstitutional central planning, control of the means of production (i.e. unconstitutional regulation), redistribution of wealth and social engineering.
They are the direct and mortal enemies of the American thesis, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Americans and America.
“DETERMINE THE LEGITIMACY OF THE ACTS OF THE EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLATIVE BRANCHES”
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“The Disqualification of Donald Trump and Other Legal Urban Legends”
– Professor Turley
_______________
“The Disqualification, Dereliction and Negligence of the Supreme Court”
Marbury vs. Madison, 1803, revealed and established the power of judicial review. The judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court, has been derelict and negligent and must have struck down, with extreme prejudice, the flagrant juridical abuse and burgeoning criminal political persecution of the current president’s political opponent, former President Donald Trump. The Supreme Court must determine the legitimacy of the indictments, or completed acts, of the executive branch and local officials. Judicial review provides the Supreme Court the power to strike down all legislative and executive acts of the federal, state, and local governments. The Supreme Court must immediately execute its mandate and determine the legitimacy of the enhanced, hyperbolized, political charges brought by the DOJ and local DAs.
______________________________________________________________
The Power of Judicial Review https://www.justia.com/constitutional-law/the-us-supreme-court-and-judicial-review/
The Supreme Court can strike down any law or other action by the legislative or executive branch that violates the Constitution. This power of judicial review applies to federal, state, and local legislative and executive actions. The Constitution does not specifically provide for the power of judicial review. It arises instead from an 1803 decision known as Marbury v. Madison.
– Justia
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Judicial Review in the United States
Annotation
The legitimacy of judicial review and the judge’s approach to judicial review are discussed.
Abstract
The doctrine of judicial review holds that the courts are vested with the authority to determine the legitimacy of the acts of the executive and the legislative branches of government.
– Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs
Dear Prof Turley,
The chorus of suddenly in-vogue legal doctrine that Jan. 6 and the 14th disqualifies Trump from office is hanging by a slender chad. I’ve been in the middle of ‘insurrections’, couple of them, and Jan. 6 was not that.
While I vehemently opposed Trump’s first impeachment (they impeached the wrong guy, imo), I do consider the well-advertised ‘Stop the Steal’ rally by president Trump worthy of criticism .. . if not a pointless impeachment (Trump was already packing his documents.)
Imo, it was at least a crass and deliberate attempt to take advantage of his supporters good nature, some who post on Res ipsa loquitur, for political gain.
Otoh, I realize we all have to wrestle with our own evil, so I, too, would have voted to acquit. Again.
As a matter of law, then, it’s settled. Despite the seemingly endless stream of indictments seeking to ‘lock him up’ for J6 now. .. which, evidently, is the only way they know to ‘shut him up’, if such a thing is possible.
*The amendment we should all be urgently investigating is the 25th. .. is they is, or is they ain’t, CRAZY.
Jonathan: You are swimming against the current. Shortly after Jan. 6 you claimed in a column that it was a “protest that became a riot”. You have been making that false claim ever since. So let’s try to unpack some of your current claims.
1. Was Jan. 6 an “insurrection” or just a “riot”? Right-wing websites have variously bizarrely claimed it was a “peaceful rally and largely a peaceful protest that was marred by some bad acts by a very few people”. Another said it was “a historic civil rights march by President Donald Trump’s supporters”. The supporters of DJT have kept repeating that false claim. Anyone who watched the events at the Capitol unfold in real time knows differently. Five people died, hundreds were injured and the Capitol trashed by DJT’s supporters. Video shows members of Congress running for their lives.
Even members of Congress have called Jan. an “insurrection”. GOP Minority leader Mitch McConnell has called Jan. 6 “a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next”. Other GOP members of Congress have said the same thing. Of course, DJT and his supporters call them “RINOS”. Go figure.
Jan. 6 was an “insurrection”. It was not a “spontaneous” protest against the election results. It was planned in advance by DJT and his supporters to stop the counting of the Electoral Votes. Had DJT’s supporters inside the Capitol been able to find VP Pence they intended to hold him hostage (or worse) to keep him from carrying out his constitutional responsibilities. That plan almost succeeded. Had it been successful the plan by DJT, John Eastman and others was to submit fake electors to replace those for Joe Biden. It was an attempted coup to try to overthrow the will of the voters to keep DJT in power.
2. The polls you cite are a distraction. It’s unlikely the average American could legally distinguish between a “riot” and an “insurrection”. The weight of legal opinion, both liberal and conservative, is that DJT violated his constitutional duty to uphold the Constitution. Lawrence Tribe and conservative former federal judge, Michael Luttig have both concluded, based on the scholarly research of conservatives William Baude and Michael Stokes, that DJT is barred from ever again holding public office under Sec. 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Despite how you try to portray Jan. 6 this isn’t about DJT’s “free speech” rights. That’s also a distraction. And the four criminal indictments of DJT are not a “Hail Mary pass”. Even you have admitted that many of the charges in the indictments involve serious crimes. It appears you are the one “wildly out of sync” with the clear meaning of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.Can you cite any other conservative scholar, anyone, who supports your views? We’re waiting.
My longtime Usenet ally, Christopher Charles Morton, never called it an insurrection.
What kind of idiot would commence an insurrection without arms sufficient to overcome those of his opponent?
In true historical “insurrections,” every man in theater has been armed to the teeth, including large stores of ammunition, secondary weapons, and rations for mission sustenance.
The goofballs on Jan. 6 had none of that; the Deep Deep State (DDS) FBI planted or found three.
The only people who don’t know that Dennis the Meanass and Nutchachacha are liars, frauds, brain washers, ineffectual propagandists, and communists strategically deployed by the DNC are Dennis the Meanass and Nutchachacha.
Dennis the Meanass and Nutchachacha can’t see the forest for the egos.
There is a maelstrom of their hatred of freedom and their general befuddlement colliding with their erroneously presumed intellectual superiority and party zeal swirling violently in their cranial vaults, such as they are.
That must really, really hurt.
What kind of idiot would commence an insurrection without arms sufficient to overcome those of his opponent?
Trump?
@Bill,
Huh?
Was Trump even there at the Capitol? If so, he would legally be allowed to be there.
But no, he wasn’t.
Did you ever read the transcript of Trump’s speech?
He purposely said go and protest peacefully.
And they did. Until they were fired upon by the local police force.
Remember, none were armed. Some (an ANTIFA member) were embedded within the crowd and did get destructive… alas Ashley Bobbit got gunned down for crawling thru a broken window… unarmed and prostrated when she was shot. (That would be murder, btw aka ‘excessive force’)
But I digress.
You must be smoking some of the good stuff.
-G
I left this comment on Alan Deroshowitz’s YouTube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6pc24bXO14
I was going to ask if you obtained a sample of your “fairy dust,” but clearly you sniffed out the evidence in copious amounts.
Jack Smith found no elements to charge insurrection. Smith, well documented for his charges and convictions ‘stretching the law to make them unrecognizable. Creating his record of appeal overturning his convictions.
So it’s a progressive urban legend because two Conservative scholars wrote a law review article.
Two left-wing activists wrote the article.
Turley says: ” Polls have shown that most of the public view Jan. 6 for what it was: a protest that became a riot. One year after the riot, CBS News mostly downplayed and ignored the result of its own poll showing that 76 percent viewed it for what it was, as a “protest gone too far.” The view that it was an actual “insurrection” was far less settled, with almost half rejecting the claim, a division breaking along partisan lines.”
The “poll” Turley relies on was premature–before all of the facts were developed. You can only believe that Jan 6 was a “protest” if you ignore the compelling evidence that has been developed since the arrests and trials of the insurrectionists. Jan 6 was a well-planned effort– Trump’s Last Stand– to try to steal the 2020 election, coming on the heels of “Stop the Steal” tours wherein Trump lied to his followers about a “landslide victory” being stolen by widespread fraud–something he knew was untrue because, even up to this day, 3 years later, no such fraud has been established. This was after bulling state election officials to falsity vote counts failed, after more than 60 lawsuits failed, after dozens of recounts, audits and “forensic audits” failed, and after Trump couldn’t bully Mike Pence into taking action he had no authority to take. There were planning meetings at the Willard Hotel with the Proud Boys, the 3 Percenters and others who conducted reconnaissance trips, testified to by a British journalist embedded with the Proud Boys, to determine the most-vulnerable points of entry into the Capitol, and plans to divert the Capitol Police away from the most-vulnerable points of entry. There was a cache of weapons in a Virginia hotel room across the Potomac. They planned to invade the Capitol from the get-go–this was not just a “protest” that got out of control–it was an effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to the peoples’ choice for President by systematically lying about nonexistent fraud and encouraging fans to descend on Washington DC to stop Biden’s victory from being accepted. If that’s not an “insurrection”, then what else could it be?
And, what was there to “protest” anyway? The fact that Americans rejected Trump? If the faithful wanted to “protest”, they could have done so at their state capitols, or even city hall where they lived. There was only one reason for them to come to Washington, DC on the day Pence was tapped with the responsibility to accept certified vote counts showing Joe Biden had won–to try to prevent Pence from taking this ceremonial step, creating more time for Trump to work on Secretaries of State, to get fake “electors” to falsify Electoral College documents, to try to get Republican legislatures to just award him victory despite the fact that he had lost.
On Jan 6th, Trump went to the ellipse and lied again to his fans about his “victory” being stolen, encouraged them to march on the Capitol, and told them that he “hoped” Pence would “do the right thing”–another lie. In fact, Pence has a high disapproval rating among registered Republicans, according to a poll by the DeMoines Register, because he has spoken out against Trump and reaffirmed the fact that he had no authority to do what Trump demanded. Trump refused, for over 3 hours, to call off his fans, enraptured by his power and influence over the gullibles, one of whom died for the cause. Meanwhile, they were hunting for Pence and Pelosi, intending to kill them.
Turley continues to carry water for Trump, defending him, downplaying the seriousness of what he did. Turley has an excuse for everything–there is a Constitutional right to lie, Jan 6 was just a “protest” that got out of control, that courts rejected his lies about fraud and a stolen election, so no big deal that Trump keeps on lying about losing, that security around the Capitol was “thin”, so I guess that means that somehow the insurrectionists weren’t wrong for inflicting millions of dollars in damage to our Capitol, defacing it, stealing items, urinating and defecating all over the place, defacing the John Lewis Memorial, causing members of Congress to flee for their lives, causing Ashli Babbitt to get shot, and so forth. Trump didn’t call off the faithful for “a couple of hours”–it was over 3 hours, Turley, and he watched it all on television. The mob was doing exactly what Trump wanted them to do. It wasn’t until he found out that Pence was safe from his fans AND refused to leave the Capitol complex to be whisked off to Timbuktu, and would stay to finish the job, that the called off the faithful. And, there’s the bloated, overused “slippery slope” argument. Oh, and Turley tries to criticize Democrats, too. When he called off the faithful, he told them he “loved” them. He promises to pardon those who have already been convicted of crimes.
Turley’s arguments are lame, and he knows it. He sells his credentials to keep encouraging the faithful disciples to believe lies, to make excuses and to engage in projection–Democrats are as bad, if not worse–there’s the “Biden Crime family”. He tries to keep the “Hunter Biden Scandal” alive, despite the fact that there’s absolutely NO evidence that JOE Biden did anything wrong–all to defend Trump–who belongs in prison. This isn’t an exercise in mind games, Turley–it’s the future of American democracy.
So what?
It was righteous payback for the whole “Trump Colluded with the Russians®™ to Steal the 2016 Election” propaganda campaign.
The Senate Intelligence Committee begs to differ–excerpted from the 8/18/2020 New York Times:
WASHINGTON — A sprawling report released Tuesday by a Republican-controlled Senate panel that spent three years investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election laid out an extensive web of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Kremlin officials and other Russians, including at least one intelligence officer and others tied to the country’s spy services.
The report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, totaling nearly 1,000 pages, drew to a close one of the highest-profile congressional investigations in recent memory and could be the last word from an official government inquiry about the expansive Russian campaign to sabotage the 2016 election.
It provided a bipartisan Senate imprimatur for an extraordinary set of facts: The Russian government disrupted an American election to help Mr. Trump become president, Russian intelligence services viewed members of the Trump campaign as easily manipulated, and some of Mr. Trump’s advisers were eager for the help from an American adversary.
Note: it was a REPUBLICAN CONTROLLED Senate Panel. What is there to “payback” for? Hillary Clinton and the “Steele Dossier” had nothing to do with this.
The Committee MADE THAT UP. It didn’t cite any evidence. And why would you pretend that the presence of Republicans on the Committee (most of whom rejected the report’s conclusions) is relevant. This is a conflict between the American people and its rulers. We would not be where we are today if Republicans did not cooperate with Democrats to sell us out.
Here is Jack Marshall.
https://ethicsalarms.com/2023/05/17/assorted-ethics-observations-on-the-durham-report-part-ii-the-substance/
Under the Baude/Paulsen interpretation, this is another reason that FJB is disqualified.
I love that facts get “developed” in your world.
Kinda like the “fact” tthat Texas makes electricity with crude oil??
How many oil fired power plants still exist in the US, know-it-all?
Great comment!