Apologies if this has already been reported. Trump Is Disqualified From Holding Office, Conservative Law Professors Argue | HuffPost Latest News
Keith is enthusiastic about it: https://youtu.be/dWAA-DOJc_o
Damn it, I can’t paste the Olbermann so it starts at the beginning 
I heard that, but my question was/is wouldn’t he have to be found guilty of it for that to be so? How simple would it have been, and how much money would we have saved as a nation if Trump was properly impeached and barred from running. But a court conviction I think would also work here, and inditement (or multiple inditements) not so much, but it does stress the importance why Trump’s case should be expedited, so this question of eligibility is answered before the election.
I am no fan of the Orange one, but 1) he hasn’t yet been convicted of anything and b) it’s going to be at least debatable that the (then) sitting President of the United States could even be guilty of 18 USC 2383. That type of offense by an office-holder is what Impeachment was intended for, and unfortunately that didn’t work.
The professors’ argument draws a distinction between the criminal aspect and the political eligibility aspect. They are separate and neither depends upon the other. Per the learned profs, state election officials are, right now, obligated to keep Trump off the ballot, criminal proceedings notwithstanding.
I think they were suggesting the suing of individual Secs of State to keep him off the ballot. Probably wouldn’t work, but it’s fun to think about, and what a collective sigh of relief if it did.
From the paper/article:
Does it require implementing legislation or criminal trials (or impeachments) before its disqualification kicks in? How does Section Three interact with the rest of the constitutional order—are its subjects protected by constitutional principles of attainder, anti-retroactivity, due process and free speech? And if Section Three does apply—to what and to whom?
Section Three is legally self-executing. That is, Section Three’s disqualification is constitutionally automatic whenever its terms are satisfied. Section Three requires no legislation or adjudication to be legally effective….[No] prior judicial decision, and no implementing legislation, is required for Section Three to be carried out by officials sworn to uphold the Constitution whose duties present the occasion for applying Section Three’s commands.
So according to these legal scholars from the Federalist Society no legal findings or legislation is necessary to carry out a disqualification. I’m not sure public opinion would support such a disqualification without legal findings against someone to make it official, but there you have it.
If the Republicans challengers lead this charge, it can only be good news for the Democrats. Which I why I assume most won’t. Maybe Christie?
I wonder if this could be triggered from the opposite direction—i.e., an election official in a deep-blue state refusing to put him on the ballot, with the GOP angrily filing suit in response.
Calabresi told the Times that election administrators must act.
“Trump is ineligible to be on the ballot, and each of the 50 state secretaries of state has an obligation to print ballots without his name on them,” he told the outlet, adding that they may be sued if they refuse.
Trump is also facing prosecution for his role in the post-election scheme but that case and Section 3 address “completely separate questions,” Baude told the Times.
“The question of should Donald Trump go to jail is entrusted to the criminal process,” he said. “The question of should he be allowed to take the constitutional oath again and be given constitutional power again is not a question given to any jury.”
Regarding the 14th amendment requirement that the an officeholder has not given aid or comfort to our enemies, what if they contributed money to an Iraqi hospital when we were fighting there? If you can’t be on the ballot due to the insurrection clause, aid or comfort applies equally, and is liable to hurt some future liberal candidate. Most of the time, people who are accused of disloyalty are left of center.
So I hope we don’t establish the precedent those conservative law professors propose. Leave as much up to the voters, in terms of candidate selection, as possible.
As for the effect of keeping Trump off ballots, I think that if he was barred in even a few states, GOP leadership would use that as an excuse to get someone else nominated. Then the front runner becomes Ron DeSantis, age 46.
He should be mocked back to the Stone Age. DeSadness has given us so many memorable moments.
With the key word being accused. The Maganuts accuse people on the left of all kinds of crazy shit, all the time.
I too am uncomfortable with the concept of removal from state ballots based on… no court case, no procedure, no submission of evidence… just an accusation.
This idea is just too delicious to ignore. So the Electoral College-rich blue states omit his name from ballots come general election time, his followers would not only have to show-up to vote, but would also have to write in his name for him to get any votes. Anyone not really paying attention will only cast votes for people on the ballot - even if they vote R, the R vote would be hopelessly fractured, and Biden wins.
The removal would be automatic, but there is an option to challenge this, by appealing to Congress.
So if Secretary of State Insane Liberal Commie keeps a candidate off the ballot, Congress can, if the accusation is truly meritless, tell Secretary I. L. Commie to get bent.
Followed by the Republicans meekly accepting that result and fading back into a civilized society?
I’m all for prosecuting Trump (or the sitting president, should he commit crimes) regardless of political fallout, but this seems like something the nuttier chunk of the country would see as a causus belli.
The presidential election is winner-take-all for each of the states. Keeping Trump off the ballot in states he won’t win anyway doesn’t seem likely to make any difference. He’d have to be kept off the ballot in states that he might win.
Good point!
It’s automatic that someone who commits sedition is ineligible to hold office. But it’s not automatic that someone who commits sedition is known to commit sedition. OK, sometimes it’s pretty clear, but sometimes it’s not.
Let’s say that some citizen pulled an Aldritch Ames, stole nuclear secrets, and sold them to North Korea. Except this guy manages not to get caught. The law is quite clear that he’s not allowed to hold office, but how can that be enforced? Maybe he’s a suspect, and the FBI says “We don’t think that this guy is eligible for office”. To which he and his lawyers will inevitably say “He is so, because he didn’t actually do it”. How do we find out whether he did? The only possible answer is that we put him on trial.
And if that’s what happens to that guy, why shouldn’t it also be what happens to Trump?
This opinion is no different from a zillion other law review articles. People can argue any point they want and back it up with tons of case law and constitutional interpretation. None of means more than a Dope thread until a judge takes a case and makes a ruling.
What if a different bunch of law profs write an article for a different law review that asserts that Biden should be barred from election because he did x, y, and z, that constitutes insurrection by definition? Would you expect any secretary of state, even in these times, to act on that?
I get it. Any right-wing opposition to Trump is like finding chicken teeth in your nuggets. Rare and probably valuable. Nevertheless, unilateral extrajudicial action can’t be based on theory. Actually, unilateral extrajudicial action is exactly what Trump says he’ll do if he’s elected. Nobody should celebrate this notion. Poke at it carefully and from a distance.
Yeah, that’s what I thought when I saw the headline.
Who cares what a professor says? He has zero standing in the case.
I suppose he might sound good as a guest on a morning talk show, but that’s all.
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There’s a lot of premature celebration going on during the past couple weeks, with everybody saying “this is it!–the final nail in Trump’s coffin, there’s no way he can defend himself now!”
I would recommend not counting our chickens too soon.
It all could boomerang.
It only takes one out of 12 to cause a hung jury.