Democrats, Seeking To Disqualify Trump, Eye an Arcane Article of the 14th Amendment

Editorial of The New York Sun | January 5, 2022 

Democrats are preparing to keep President Trump from even contemplating another run for the White House — by any means necessary, starting with President Biden’s claim that Mr. Trump was “singularly responsible” for the “chaos and carnage” of January 6. They failed twice at impeachment, but their January 6 committee is contemplating criminal accusations. The Attorney General is warning of possible charges.

The most startling scheme to run Mr. Trump out of the 2024 campaign, though, comes from those who want to revive a tool that was added to the Constitution in 1868 and hasn’t been used since 1919. It’s the Fourteenth Amendment’s Disqualification Clause, a Reconstruction-era ban on ex-Confederates holding elected office never intended for events like January 6.

The clause bars from serving in office anyone who, having “taken an oath” as an officer of the United States, engages in “insurrection or rebellion against the same.” A former campaign lawyer for Senator Clinton, Marc Elias, recently predicted that there will be “a serious discussion” over whether some House Republicans will be “disqualified by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment from serving in Congress.”............To Read More.....

Dems’ Next Plot Against Trump If Senate impeachment trial fails

Feb 11, 2021 Joseph Klein

With the Senate impeachment trial underway that is virtually certain to end in acquittal, the Democrats are already planning their next move against Donald Trump. They are looking to use an obscure clause in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, written in the aftermath of the Civil War and aimed at disqualifying ex-Confederate rebels from public office, to bar Trump from holding any future public office. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment allows for the disqualification of individuals from holding federal or state office who both previously (1) took an oath to support the U.S. Constitution as a federal or state government legislator or officer, and (2) then “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

The Democrats leading the charge on the Fourteenth Amendment gambit include Senators Tim Kaine of Virginia, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Dick Durbin of Illinois, along with Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Steve Cohen of Tennessee. They are being advised by leftist academics who believe that Congress has the unilateral power to pass a joint resolution invoking the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification provision against Trump. As far as the Trump-haters are concerned, it is perfectly all right to put aside due process and fundamental fairness, so long as Trump is barred from holding public office ever again.

The Democrats’ unconstitutional Senate show trial is bad enough. The House’s lead impeachment manager has even gone so far as to suggest that Trump’s refusal to testify be used as an inference of guilt – precisely the opposite of the presumption of innocence and the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination. But even that is not enough for the Trump-haters. Assuming the likely outcome of acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial on the incitement of insurrection charge, the Democrats want to further upend the Constitution by taking another bite at the apple. This time they want to do so by majority vote of both Democrat-controlled chambers under a perverted reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. They have one insurmountable problem. The Constitution includes a specific provision prohibiting bills of attainder (Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3).........To Read More.....