A growing number of legal scholars believe that former President Donald Trump should be banned from returning to the White House for his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Conservative J. Michael Luttig, a former retired federal judge, and liberal Laurence Tribe, a former Harvard Law School professor, wrote in The Atlantic on Saturday that they believe the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause now applies to Trump.
They argued that “a conviction would be irrelevant” as the former president has been indicted four times, with two of the cases revolving around his efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
“The former president’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the resulting assault on the US Capitol is happening.” [Trump] “This is entirely within the scope of the disqualification clause, and as such he is not eligible to serve as president ever again,” Luttig and Tribe wrote in their Atlantic post.
They pointed to several other legal scholars who had already come to the same conclusion, including William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, writing on the subject for an upcoming issue of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Anjani Jain of the Yale School of Management .
Former President Donald Trump appears Jan. 6 at the “Stop the Steal” rally ahead of the violent attack on the Capitol. A growing number of legal scholars believe he would be barred from the presidency for his actions that day, which they say activated the disqualification clause
Liberal constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe (left) and retired former federal judge J. Michael Luttig (right) joined CNN’s Jim Acosta on the network Saturday to discuss an article they wrote for The Atlantic about the subject went that Trump is already barred from the presidency
Baude and Paulsen are members of the conservative Federalist Society and wrote that “the arguments for disqualification are sound”.
“In our view, based on the public record, former President Donald J. Trump is constitutionally barred from resuming the presidency (or holding any other covert office) for his role in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 election and the events leading up to it ) excluded.” on the January 6 attack,” wrote Baude and Paulsen.
Baude and Paulsen wrote that Trump delivered a “general and specific message” when he addressed a crowd at the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse ahead of the violent attack on the Capitol.
His message there was that the election was stolen and he urged the crowd to take immediate action to block the transfer of power.
He then remained silent for hours as the assault on the Capitol progressed.
“Trump’s willful inaction makes his January 6 speech much more incriminating in hindsight, for it makes it even less plausible (if it ever was plausible) that the crowd’s reaction was a gross error or misunderstanding,” Baude and Paulsen wrote.
Luttig and Tribe argued that the disqualification clause — written into the constitution after the Civil War, when the South attempted to send former Confederates back into Congress — had its own power.
The clause states that those who took part in an insurrection or rebellion … or [had] He who has given aid or comfort to the enemy, who has served in government, cannot serve again.
The scholars believe this means that Trump did not need to be convicted by the Senate when he was indicted for the second time on charges of inciting a riot for the disqualification clause to apply.
They also argue that he does not need to be convicted on the current January 6 charges.
“The clause should act directly and immediately against those who break their oath to the Constitution, whether by taking up arms to overthrow our government or by waging war against our government by attempting to hold a presidential election overthrow by a bloodless coup,” Luttig said and Tribe wrote.
In a joint appearance on CNN on Saturday, Tribe spoke about how Trump’s legal cases didn’t matter.
He told CNN’s Jim Acosta, “People have to get used to the fact that whatever happens in these very important trials against the President, under the terms of the Constitution, he’s simply no longer eligible for President.”
‘Stay tuned. “This will be a saga that will last until the election,” Tribe also said.
On Sunday, her interpretation of the disqualification clause resonated in the political universe.
Presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson brought it up while appearing with Kasie Hunt on CNN’s State of the Union.
He told Hunt that he didn’t think Trump would end up being the Republican nominee.
“But I want to point out that I’m not even sure if he’s qualified to be the next President of the United States,” he said. “So you can’t ask us to support someone who might not even be qualified under our Constitution.” And I’m referring to the 14th Amendment, where a number of legal scholars said he was a criminal for his actions on April 6. been disqualified in January.’
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who appeared on State of the Union after Hutchinson, referred to the former Arkansas governor’s comments on the 14th amendment and shared his concerns.
Cassidy said in the same interview that Trump should be dropped from the running because the classified documents case was “almost a bull’s eye.”
The Louisiana Republican called Hutchinson a “great guy,” noting that he said, “Some legal scholars believe he’s being disqualified under the 14th Amendment.”
“I’m not sure if that’s true, but I’m not a lawyer — which means that the people you see on this stage, one of them, will most likely be the presidential nominee,” Cassidy said, referencing how Trump did wants to skip the first Republican debate, which will take place in Milwaukee on Wednesday.