Congress Must Stop Trump From Being Sworn In, Argues Column in The Hill
I say Dems should go for it. Not because I actually want them to, but the theater will be of the absurd.
An op-ed in The Hill by two lawyers argues that Congress has the right and the duty to prevent Trump from taking office because he allegedly committed insurrection and is disqualified:
The Constitution provides that an oath-breaking insurrectionist is ineligible to be president. This is the plain wording of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … 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.” This disability can be removed by a two-thirds vote in each House.
Disqualification is based on insurrection against the Constitution and not the government. The evidence of Donald Trump’s engaging in such insurrection is overwhelming. The matter has been decided in three separate forums, two of which were fully contested with the active participation of Trump’s counsel.
The first fully contested proceeding was Trump’s second impeachment trial. On Jan. 13, 2021, then-President Trump was impeached for “incitement of insurrection.” At the trial in the Senate, seven Republicans joined all Democrats to provide a majority for conviction but failed to reach the two-thirds vote required for removal from office. Inciting insurrection encompasses “engaging in insurrection” against the Constitution “or giving aid and comfort to the enemies thereof,” the grounds for disqualification specified in Section 3.
The second contested proceeding was the Colorado five-day judicial due process hearing where the court “found by clear and convincing evidence that President Trump engaged in insurrection as those terms are used in Section Three.” The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed. On further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the court held that states lack power to disqualify candidates for federal office and that federal legislation was required to enforce Section 3. The court did not address the finding that Trump had engaged in insurrection.
Finally, there is the bipartisan inquiry of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol….
How will this blocking action take place? By refusing to count contested electoral votes if objection is made under the Electoral Count Act and sustained by both houses of Congress. That’s not going to happen, of course, but they want Democrats to try anyway.
I say Dems should go for it. Not because I actually want them to, but the theater will be of the absurd.
Trump won the popular vote, every swing state, and the electoral college
The Hill is now plotting an insurrection to stop him
Disbar the authors of this article and send the FBI into their offices
That’s how it works right? pic.twitter.com/Oo5JqYbWRx
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) December 26, 2024
The told us they were going to do this..pic.twitter.com/QlErX39IsR https://t.co/yhurr333Vy
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 26, 2024
The Hill about Insurrection when it’s on their terms. pic.twitter.com/RyGruKd8EV
— James Colvin (@JamesColvin88) December 26, 2024
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Comments
One simple question for Democrats…were you lying on Jan 6, 2021 or are you lying now?
One simple answer, ‘yes’
Be ready for real political violence from the left in January. These idiots are already calling themselves ” the Resistance” in online diacussion boards. Some are even so brazen as to call themselves 5th columnists. Black block is going to be the in fashion for Antifashionist. Be prepared for a repeat of Jan 20, 2017. But now we know what to expect and need volunteers to counter it. We know the DC police won’t do anything about it. It’s up to us.
I’ve noticed that I am being followed on social media by people I don’t know, and they clearly are not the type I associate with. I’m no conspiracy guy but I find it highly unusual.
Are their lips moving?
Column from the Hill:
“We must always have our way.
We don’t care about elections.
We don’t care about democracy.
We will do anything to further our agenda.”
You are describing “Their Democracy”.
The Dems, RINOS, FBI, etc didn’t a very good job with the real stealth insurrection on J6. Color that revolution “Blue”.
Speaks for itself. Keep it up and soon you’ll be worse than the dog catcher in peoples’ eyes. The only problem is what you do to the country you pretend to care about. Let’s stop this crap!
I think they already are.
Don’t disrespect dogcatchers.
I believe John Eastman is facing disbarment for making a similar argument about the Electoral Vote count. Do these guys practice in a place where Republicans can at least attempt to do the same?
Would Biden still be president after 12:01 PM 1/20/25 if Trump isn’t sworn in? If not, would the office be officially vacant? What then? These educated fools probably haven’t thought about the mess we would have if that’s the case.
Blithering idjits all of them.
.
I believe that since the electoral college already voted that even if they were somehow successful ( I would put those odds at miniscule.) it would simply mean that Vance would become POTUS. At that point President Vance becomes extremely powerful and the Democratic party is all but destroyed as independent voters would not vote for them for at least one generation
Pet peeve: minuscule, not miniscule.
“Pet peeve: minuscule, not miniscule.” Is not a proper sentence. You are missing a predicate.
I think you should use proper grammar when correcting others.
No, Biden’s term ends at noon on the 20th. If there is no replacement president then the office is vacant, and the speaker of the House temporarily fills in until a president is chosen.
But assuming Trump’s victory on the 17th is confirmed on Jan 6, and he is still alive at noon on the 20th, he will automatically become president whether he takes the oath or not. The oath is only required in order for him to “enter on the execution of his office”. Until then he is the president but can’t yet exercise the office’s powers.
If Congress on the 6th were to reject Trump’s electors, as these guys want, then Harris would be declared elected, and would become president on the 20th.
And a period of massive chaos if not an actual civil war would begin.
Speaker Johnson has his eyes set on those dates…especially after meeting with Dems.
One little quibble. Until the House elects one, there is no Speaker, so the office moves temporarily down the established chain of command – except that if there is no Speaker, no other appointees can be confirmed, which means that there is no chain of command. Riddle me that, oh Oracle.
First of all, the House elects its speaker on the 3rd. By the 20th there is a speaker. But if there is none then the senate’s president pro tem fills in until there’s a president. In the coming senate that will be Chuck Grassley.
Note that no one but the vice president can become president by filling a vacancy; the others down the line are only temporary acting president.
“If Congress on the 6th were to reject Trump’s electors, as these guys want, then Harris would be declared elected, and would become president on the 20th.”
There is no second-place winner of a presidential election. One candidate wins, everyone else loses. Or do you think the authors of the Constitution missed a trick, when they established a set of rules under which one party could back its way into the White House should they have enough votes in Congress to prevent the opposing party’s presidential election winner from taking office?
I would argue they did not miss a trick. If an election-winning candidate is to be blocked from office by reason of having committed a specific crime, an independent authority must first find him guilty of said crime. That “authority” is a jury, having heard evidence in a court of proper jurisdiction to try the case. Without a guilty verdict from a jury, Trump as an “insurrectionist” is a fact not in evidence, no matter who holds an opinion to the contrary.
Note The Hill goes to great lengths to identify other “authorities” who agree on this point, even going to far as to call the House investigation “bi-partisan” in an attempt to give it a cachet of “fairness” if not independence. But none of the cited authorities provide a finding of guilt comparable to that which can be rendered by a jury. Even the Senate’s finding in an impeachment trial is a political, not a legal, finding. Note that the 14th Amendment says its provisions are to be enforced by “legislation,” strongly suggesting law, due process – also required by the amendment – and a finding of guilt by a jury are necessary to the execution of its rule under section 3.
Indeed. And if for any reason the 312 Republican electors’ votes are not counted, then Harris is the first-place winner. She wins 226-0.
The drafters and ratifiers of the 12th amendment certainly did miss a trick. By failing to specify who shall count the votes, or provide for any dispute over the count, and over which votes to count and which to disregard, they set up the crisis of 1877 and that of 2021.
Congress tried to correct that problem in 1878, by entrenching its own view in law; but Eastman correctly points out that that’s not how it works.
The sanction in 14A § 3 is not a criminal penalty. No criminal finding is necessary; all that is necessary is that the series of acts described shall have happened. It doesn’t even have to be a crime. It could even have been pardoned by the president.
Remember the section was originally adopted specifically to bar Alexander Stephens from holding office. Stephens had already been pardoned by the president, so no criminal proceeding against him was possible. But the 14A barred him from office (other than the presidency or vice presidency) until the House removed the disability in 1872.
On the contrary, legislation means a political act by Congress, not a judicial process.
The 14th amendment require due process only for a state to deprive a person of life, liberty, or property. Due process is not required in any other case. A disqualification under 14A § 3 does not deprive a person of any of those things. Stephens kept his life, his liberty, and his property, and thus neither needed nor received due process; but the 14A stopped him from being elected to Congress or as state governor until 1872.
Well, until the Electoral Count Act is ruled unconstitutional it’s still the law, and since Congress is co-equal with the other branches in interpreting how the Constitution applies to its daily operations, it is free to determine how to implement the duties outlined in the 12th Amendment. Taken as a whole and in light of other Constitutional guarantees, it is not unreasonable to assume Congress is to judge the validity of the Electoral Votes.
If there were a genuine risk that all 312 Republican elector votes in favor of Donald Trump would be thrown out, couldn’t those 312 electors get together and agree to be “faithless” in favor of J.D. Vance and some agreeable V.P.?
No. The Vice President performs the duties of President until one is qualified to take office.
In this scenario though there wouldn’t be a VP. The term of office of the outgoing VP, Harris would have ended. The same electoral vote/count that would make JD Vance VP would be caught in stalemate that didn’t yet certify Trump selection by Electoral College as POTUS.
Did I miss something in the scenario?
Didn’t you leave out the President of the Senate, who is before the Speaker of the House in succession.
Nothing new from the left.
Do people seriously have such short memories that they don’t remember the absolutely CRINGE video from the self-important Hollywoke celebrities telling the electors to ‘do the right thing’?
Oh boy. How many things can one short piece get wrong?
No, it doesn’t. It bars such a person from being “a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or” from holding “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State,”. The presidency is not such an office, and therefore even someone who was genuinely covered by the clause, e.g. Alexander Stephens, for whom the clause was originally designed, could still be elected president.
Again, the presidency is not one of the offices from which such a person is barred. Also, the elision in “an oath…to support” is important. The elision specifies what kind of oath it must be. It must be “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.” Trump was never any of those things, and thus never took the specified oath, so even if Alexander Stephens were barred from the presidency (which he wasn’t), and even if Trump were guilty of the charge, he’d still not be barred.
And it was, in 1872. Two thirds of each house voted “that all political disabilities imposed by the third section of the fourteenth article of amendments of the Constitution of the United States are hereby removed from all persons whomsoever, except” a list of exceptions, none of which includes Trump. There was no mention of the removal applying only to persons then living. So even if Stephens was barred from the presidency, and even if Trump had previously taken the specified oath, and even if he had subsequently engaged in insurrection, he would still not be barred because he is a “person whomsoever” and is not listed among the exceptions.
No, it is not. The clause specifies “insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”. “The same” refers to the United States, not its constitution. You can’t insurge or rebel against a document, nor can a document have enemies. The oath specified is to support the constitution; the offense is insurrection or rebellion against the united states, or giving aid or comfort to their enemies.
No, it isn’t.
Okay, let’s see it.
In other and more accurate words, the senate failed to reach the two thirds vote required for conviction. That there was a simple majority for conviction is irrelevant, because that’s not the criterion. It’s like saying that a criminal jury voted 7-5 to convict someone, or even 11-1; that is not a vote to convict. “No Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.” The fact is that the senate acquitted Trump.
Says who? Inciting any other crime doesn’t encompass committing the crime. And that’s even if the object of “the same” were the constitution.
Of course it didn’t. It found that neither the district court nor the state supreme court had any jurisdiction to make a finding on the matter, so there was no need to even consider whether the finding was correct.
It was not bipartisan; the former Republicans who joined it did not represent the Republican Party, they were appointed by and represented the Democrat Party.
It’s not the “majority’s suggestion”, it’s right there in the explicit text of the constitution, in the very clause the decision was based on. You can’t say that “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article” excludes anyone but Congress from enforcing it, and then turn around and say but Congress can do it by means other than that specified! That doesn’t add up.
No, it isn’t. This is the same error that Eastman and Trump made, but in reverse. The constitution says the votes are to be counted in the presence of both houses. The vice president is to open the envelopes, and “the votes shall then be counted”. It doesn’t say by whom. Nor does it say that either the VP or Congress can reject any votes.
And it remains probably unconstitutional. This issue first flared up in 1886. There was no vice president at the time, so the president pro tem presided, and he claimed that as chairman of the meeting, and as the only person given a role in the proceedings, he got to decide which votes were valid. Congress, he said, were merely witnesses and had no role to play. Congress, of course, disagreed. The upshot was that in 1887 Congress passed an act embodying its view; but that’s not how it works. Congress saying “we’re right” is no different from the president pro tem saying “I’m right”. And doing it in the form of an act of congress doesn’t change that. I think Eastman is 100% correct that the Electoral Count Act is invalid; I think he’s wrong in asserting that in its absence the VP gets to decide. He’s wrong because that’s not what the constitution says. But right or wrong, it’s definitely not the case that the constitution supports Congress’s view.
<blockquote
The unlikelihood of congressional Republicans doing anything that might elect Harris as president is obvious. But Democrats need to take a stand against Electoral College votes for a person disqualified by the Constitution from holding office unless and until this disability is removed. No less is required by their oath to support and defend the Constitution.
Oops, I messed up that last block quote.
Having no facts or law, the opinion writing lawyers in The Hill are just pounding the lectern.
Holy Wall of Text, Batman!
These lawyers apparently have no idea why their side lost.
Hmm. Publicly advocating for collusion to commit the prevention of a duly elected potus assuming office sounds mighty insurrection-y to me.
I think the authors of that Hill article should be arrested, and indefinitely imprisoned w/o trial in GitMo until another administration takes over in 2029 in order to sAve OuR dEmOcRaCy.
If people just standing outside the capitol can go to jail for years then journalists absolutely can.
One even got over 20 years, and wasn’t even in DC….
referred for disbarrment for proposing insurrection. What’s good for the goose after all
Milhouse wants his own post
Milhouse needs his own blog
The Hill itching to pay a bigger settlement than ABC and George Snuffleupagus.
Nope. There’s no defamation in that piece. Lots of nonsense and misstatements of the law, but no false and defamatory statements of fact concerning any person.
The Hill was pretty clear about the opinion in the piece not necessarily having any relationship with their corporate opinion. But the two clowns who wrote it should be introduced to some “process punishment.”
A “Big Bang Theory” analogy, if you will:
Sheldon: “I have a comment to make….”
Leonard: “Here we go…”
—
Problem is, Democrat attorneys are not Sheldon, they’re the building elevator that doesn’t work.
So in 25 days when DJT is sworn in as President can these 2 be arrested and jailed for a year without trial for Insurrection?
yes!
The dems noticed that the Constitution sets that venue for contesting a doubtful election, this time.
The US finally has a Guy Faulks day.
Well in theory, he all ready took the Oath. Maybe we should ask the UN if is ok if Trump can be president.
I’d like to be able to say that even the Dems aren’t that stupid, but I can’t.
I can’t help but wonder if they truly believe that there won’t be any negative reaction to arbitrarily turning over an election (setting aside the unlikelihood of success for the sake of argument) where it’s pretty damn clear what the populace has decided, or they know it won’t happen so it’s just consequence-free pandering to their base.
when did the Dems ever worry about
if something was legal or not before
going fwd ,,,
next question … if they try this …
how many lampposts are there in DC.
how much rope will we need.
cuz I believe they are going to get their
wish … they have been itching for a
civil war for 20 years … they may get it.
they may not like it …
This “Theater of the Absurd” will merely serve to distract everyone from the on-going Ukraine raid on the US Treasury and kick backs to “The Big Guys”.
Someone should send loathsome Raskin a copy of the Christmas Day Ceausescu video…with pop corn.
……or of il duce
He needs a Mussollini reception.
Each one of these numbskulls should replace a Jan 6 defendant or convict in jail.
Thank goodness we have those selfless leftists safeguarding democracy for all of us!
The Demon-crabs keep trying to gain perpetual control of the government. If anyone violated the Constitution it was Sleezy Joe Biden!!
Again, for these idiot Democrats: the 14th Amendment did not amend the eligibility clause of Article 2 Section 1.
Second: the 14th specifically calls out “Senator” and “Representative in Congress” but not “President”. Therefore you cannot use “Officer” in place of “President”.
Third: What you are suggesting is election interference by obstructing a government proceeding and a conspiracy against rights. Ask Jack Smith, he’ll give you the details.
Lessee, dems are on life support at the national level and this is their best play? Agree they should go for it, as they are in FAFO land. I want them to FA so they can FO and in the words of HL Mencken, get it good and hard. Cheers –
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