Is Trump legally qualified to be a presidential candidate?

[Ken]

I think the 14th amendment was for Confederates, not real estate moguls from Queens.

No, actually it wasn't. All the confederates were pardoned prior to the passage of the 14th Amendment. So the 14th Amendment was written for future insurrectionists, not past ones.

On May 26, 1865 President Johnson issued amnesty and pardon to all former confederates.
https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/ ... cument_two provided that they declared loyalty to the United States. And many returned to public life and public office at that time. The 14th Amendment was not ratified until July 1868 over three years later. So it was never actually applied to confederates, thousands of whom held public office after the war.

Interesting. Are you sure it wasn't to sideline all the Confederates who refused to swear allegiance the the union or otherwise go through the process.

From what I have read the 14th Amendment was never used to disqualify any confederate from public office. So it was more of a forward looking prospective thing not backward looking.

[JimFoxvog]

I can’t say I was too surprised when I scrolled back up to read the byline and saw Lawrence Tribe. He’s one of the many hacks who keep showing up in my Twitter feed whose game is to tell anti-Trump liberals exactly what they want to hear. What other sort of person would look at Trump’s unique I-win-no-matter-what constitutional theories and think to themselves, “Yes, more of this please!”

The other author of the Atlantic article is the former federal appellate judge Michael Luttig, described as a conservative. Do you know if that is accurate?

[temporal1]

Page 1:

Pelerin:
First you have to get Trump for insurrection (so that’s why everybody started using that specific word). ..

^^It was absurd.
“That word” was widely distributed as fact in msm from the start, no legal representation, just signed-sealed-delivered,
‘cause “THEY” wanted to. How better to immediately destroy your own credibility? No due process. (That treatment’s mostly reserved for the unborn.)

Page 1:

Pelerin:
.. But finally and above all, this article is actually probably the best defense of the January 6 rioters that could have been written.
The rioters believed, “They don’t care what the voters actually voted for, they’ll never let Trump be re-elected.”
And now this article says, “Yeah, that’s true.”

^^Tons of evidence of this attitude/game plan, beginning soon after the 2016 election, never taking a weekend off.

[Robert]

https://jonathanturley.org/2023/08/21/t ... n-legends/

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.

[Pelerin]

I can’t say I was too surprised when I scrolled back up to read the byline and saw Lawrence Tribe. He’s one of the many hacks who keep showing up in my Twitter feed whose game is to tell anti-Trump liberals exactly what they want to hear. What other sort of person would look at Trump’s unique I-win-no-matter-what constitutional theories and think to themselves, “Yes, more of this please!”

The other author of the Atlantic article is the former federal appellate judge Michael Luttig, described as a conservative. Do you know if that is accurate?

I don’t know about him. For Laurence Tribe, when all Trump’s issues started back with Mueller, etc. he started showing up in my Twitter feed and seemed like he ought to be a trustworthy guide to explain things. But then I eventually figured out what he was doing (and others, not just him) wasn’t much different than what, say, Fox does, but just dressed up in more respectable clothes. And I suppose that just annoys me more than if you had come out and told me what you were up to in the first place.

[Pelerin]

Page 1:

Pelerin:
First you have to get Trump for insurrection (so that’s why everybody started using that specific word). ..

^^It was absurd.
“That word” was widely distributed as fact in msm from the start, no legal representation, just signed-sealed-delivered,
‘cause “THEY” wanted to. How better to immediately destroy your own credibility? No due process. (That treatment’s mostly reserved for the unborn.)

On the one hand January 6 was shocking, so sure, call it an insurrection talking to your friends or on Twitter or wherever. But language has different modes depending on what you’re using it for and calling it an insurrection among your friends doesn’t mean that it’s an insurrection in a legal sense. If you’re not careful with your thinking you just end up in a logic cascade and that can take you just about anywhere you want to go—“Hey guys I found this one neat constitutional law trick that will get rid of Donald Trump forever!”

[temporal1]

Page 1:

Pelerin:
First you have to get Trump for insurrection (so that’s why everybody started using that specific word). ..

^^It was absurd.
“That word” was widely distributed as fact in msm from the start, no legal representation, just signed-sealed-delivered,
‘cause “THEY” wanted to. How better to immediately destroy your own credibility? No due process. (That treatment’s mostly reserved for the unborn.)

On the one hand January 6 was shocking, so sure, call it an insurrection talking to your friends or on Twitter or wherever.

But language has different modes depending on what you’re using it for and calling it an insurrection among your friends doesn’t mean that it’s an insurrection in a legal sense.

If you’re not careful with your thinking you just end up in a logic cascade and that can take you just about anywhere you want to go—“Hey guys I found this one neat constitutional law trick that will get rid of Donald Trump forever!”

Agreed.
Social media offers exquisite temptations to return to MOB CONTROL, which has disastrous world history.
Trump is the favored target, people are foolish to believe this is confined to DJT.

Due process can be annoying and time consuming, however, short of that, it’s MOB RULE.
It’s reared it’s ugly head throughout history. It always “feels” great in the moment. Very inviting.

[Bootstrap]

I can’t say I was too surprised when I scrolled back up to read the byline and saw Lawrence Tribe. He’s one of the many hacks who keep showing up in my Twitter feed whose game is to tell anti-Trump liberals exactly what they want to hear. What other sort of person would look at Trump’s unique I-win-no-matter-what constitutional theories and think to themselves, “Yes, more of this please!”

The other author of the Atlantic article is the former federal appellate judge Michael Luttig, described as a conservative. Do you know if that is accurate?

Yes, and he has been mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee when Republicans are trying to fill a slot. Mike Pence respected him as a conservative, and turned to him for legal advice when he wanted to know if he had the right to overturn election results.

Here are two other members of the conservative Federalist Society who agree with Luttig on this question. I think they make a good case that this can legally be considered an insurrection.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm ... id=4532751

That said, don't hold your breath. The courts will not want to get this involved in election politics. I really don't see the Supreme Court telling Donald Trump he can't run.

[Bootstrap]

Here's Luttig, for people who want to hear a very respected conservative judge who thinks Trump is not eligible to run.

[Bootstrap]

I can’t say I was too surprised when I scrolled back up to read the byline and saw Lawrence Tribe. He’s one of the many hacks who keep showing up in my Twitter feed whose game is to tell anti-Trump liberals exactly what they want to hear. What other sort of person would look at Trump’s unique I-win-no-matter-what constitutional theories and think to themselves, “Yes, more of this please!”

Fair enough.

Just like what Jonathan Turley and Alan Dershowitz do for the Fox News audience.

But when he teams up with someone like Michael Luttig, that grabbed my attention. These two men have been on the opposite side of so many issues as long as I can remember.