I caught a glimpse of a woman “Legal Expert” on CNN this morning discussing Amendment 14 Section 3 and its legal ramifications regarding the candidacy of Trump to run for POTUS.
She claimed that the Sec 3 argument isn’t valid because Trump was never charged with insurrection. And she also added that the President is NOT an officer. I was expecting her to add that he never swore an oath to support the Constitution, but I didn’t hear that. Well, those are the arguments made by Trump and that’s going to raise a lot of questions from me. Why it didn’t from CNN is beyond me. I guess they aren’t there to question the “expert” but just let her talk regardless of the truth. This is the guy who argues that he should have Absolute Immunity from any prosecution because he was the POTUS.
Trump claims that he and every President of this country must have full immunity to do the job.
Trump: “A president of the United States MUST have full immunity, without which, it would be impossible for him/her to properly function. Any mistake, even if well intended, would be met with almost certain indictment by the opposing party at term-end. Even events that “cross the line”, must fall under total immunity. Example: You can’t stop the police from doing the job of strong and effective crime prevention because you want to guard against the occasional “rogue cop” or “bad apple”. Sometimes you just have to live with the “Great but slightly imperfect”. All Presidents must have complete and total presidential immunity.”
I wouldn’t doubt that Trump would pardon Derek Chauvin, the murderer of George Floyd.
Giving criminal immunity to people who are sworn to uphold the law contradicts the very RULE of LAW. This is the sign of an authoritarian dictatorship. In this country, we do not believe that police or politicians should be able to do whatever they want to do with impunity. A police officer is given a badge of authority and a gun. He’s entrusted with that authority and the judgment to carry that gun. If he violates the public trust, he can be held accountable.
Trump’s argument is Constitutionally absurd and totally ahistorical. One of our great traditions and reasons for the revolution is to counter the idea that the King can do wrong and instead, can be held accountable. We can go after the highest leaders of our government. Our entire Constitution is structured around that principle. We’ve had 46 Presidents and NOT one has claimed absolute immunity from criminal law except for Donald Trump. He’s spitting on the Constitution. He’s spitting on the rule of law. There’s no more disqualifying statement than the one that Trump made regarding total immunity.
Trump claims that every time a president leaves, the opposition will indict him. That is historically false. It’s never happened in the entire history of our nation until now. Most, actually all our Presidents move on to the next phase of their life after a peaceful transition of power. Somebody won and somebody lost, and life goes on. What’s new here is that we’ve never had a President who has engaged in so much criminal behavior that he’s facing four criminal indictments with 91 criminal charges filed against him based on Evidence. That’s not political. It’s not a “Witch Hunt”. Its Evidence and evidence are facts and facts present the Truth. 46 Presidents and only one has compiled a list of criminal charges that would lead to indictments of criminal acts. That’s because NORMAL Presidents don’t commit crimes while in office. Trump did. Trump is claiming that he can’t even be tried. You can’t even have a jury inquire into what I’m doing because, at one time, I was President of the United States. As if being POTUS is a get-out-of-jail-free card.
During his impeachment, his defenders in the Senate said you can’t impeach him because you can criminally prosecute him AFTER he leaves office. Then he leaves office, and they say he has total immunity because he was President. These contradictions can’t stand. We live by the Law of Non-Contradiction. You cannot be A and be NOT A at the same time. That’s basic to rational thought. Unless we accept complete irrationality in our leaders and our constitution, this simply cannot stand.
Trump constantly contradicts himself. He calls Biden a criminal, and Biden is acting unconstitutionally as the President and should be locked up. But if Trump’s argument of Absolute Immunity were true, that would be impossible. Biden couldn’t break the law according to Trumps’ reasoning. If Trump’s argument is true, that Presidents have absolute immunity, then tomorrow Joe Biden can order SEAL TEAM 6 to go and assassinate Donald Trump and he could never be prosecuted for doing it. That’s an INSANE view of the Constitution and should disqualify Trump from any serious consideration for the highest office in the land. In our entire history, no President before him or after has ever entertained such an outlandish and insane concept of the office of President. He has no grasp of the limits to the power of the President and demonstrates his desire to be a dictator without any limits placed on whatever whim grabs his fancy at the moment regardless of the legality of what’s involved in doing it.
Trump's arguments don’t carry much weight when it comes to his knowledge of Civics, the Constitution, or even the office that he once held as CEO of the United States.
Historical precedent confirms that a criminal conviction is not required for an individual to be disqualified under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. No one who has been formally disqualified under Section 3 was charged under the criminal “rebellion or insurrection” statute (18 U.S.C. § 2383) or its predecessors. This fact is consistent with Section 3’s text, legislative history, and precedent, all of which make clear that a criminal conviction for any offense is not required for disqualification. This is a matter of the Courts interpretation of the Consitution. The Deprtment of Justice doesn't do that. The Supreme Court does that. It's an issue for the Judiciary, NOT the Justice Department. Section 3 is not a criminal penalty, but rather is a qualification for holding public office in the United States that can be and has been enforced through civil lawsuits in state courts, among other means.
The precedent likewise confirms that one can “engage” in insurrection without personally committing violent acts. These rulings are consistent with the views of Attorney General Henry Stanbery, who opined in 1867 during the debate on the 14th Amendment, that when a person has “incited others to engage in [insurrection or] rebellion, he must come under the disqualification.” President Andrew Johnson and his Cabinet approved that interpretation, and Johnson directed officers commanding the Southern military districts to follow it.
Stanbery wrote that “when a person has, by speech or by writing, incited others to engage in rebellion, they must come under the disqualification.”
Never before in the history of the United States has somebody who engaged in insurrection against the Constitution run for president after having taken an oath to protect that document. Never before in the history of the United States has a sitting president sicced a mob on the Capitol while they were counting electoral votes. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was put in place precisely for this reason.
Here is the Amendment.
14th Amendment section 3
Section 3.
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, (the Oval Office. The Office of the POTUS) civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken 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, 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. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”'
So, did Donald Trump hold an office in the United States? Yes. Does the President act as an executive? Yes, The Government of the United States is broken down into three separate branches. The Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, and the Judicial Branch. He is the Chief Executive Officer of the United States.
So, was Donald Trump the Chief Executive Officer of the United States? Yes. As the CEO of the United States, did he occupy the Oval Office? Yes. So, would that make him an “Office Holder”? Yes. Does all of this make him an officer of the United States Government? Yes. Even if you tried to claim that he wasn’t an “officer” it’s impossible to deny that he did hold an Office and was an Executive, both of which are addressed in Section 3. Does all of this demonstrate that he held an Office? Yes. Does all of this demonstrate that he was an Executive? Yes. Does Section 3 apply to Trump? YES. It does.
Is his argument absurd? Yes.
Is the CNN Legal analyst wrong? YES
Perhaps we need to find the definition of the word Officer.
Officer: Noun. : one who holds an office of trust, authority, or command: chief executive officer
Is the POTUS the Chief Executive Officer of the United States? Yes.
Therefore, He is by definition, an OFFICER.
Let’s examine the logic
Modus Ponens: IF/Than conditional
If Donald Trump held the office of POTUS, THEN he was the CEO of the United States
Donald Trump held the office of POTUS
Therefore, Donald Trump was the CEO of the United States.
Is an Officer an Officer? Well, there are three Laws of Thought as described by Aristotle.
The Law of Identity: If A, Then A. If something is an Orange, then it is an Orange (In the common vernacular, it is what it is)
The Law of Non-Contradiction: Nothing can be both A and NOT A. Nothing can be an Orange and not an Orange.
The Law of the Excluded Middle: Everything is either A or NOT A. Everything is either an Orange or NOT an Orange.
Section 3 points out these crucial points: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office. Did Trump hold an Office? Yes
“or as an executive. Was Trump an executive? Yes. He was the Chief Executive of the Executive Branch of the United States of America.
If we can’t agree with this – (the three laws of thought) - then we have no basis for rational communication. This is not a matter of opinion. It’s NOT a normative argument. It’s a positive argument in law. If we can’t agree that the furry thing sleeping on the couch is a cat and not a lawnmower then our ability to communicate is impossible.
It’ll be interesting to see what the SCOTUS does with this question. Will they follow the Constitution or bend to the will of a Dictator that put them on the Bench?
This led me to re-read something that Charles Pierce wrote in Idiot America.
“It is of course TV that has enabled Idiot America to run riot within modern politics and all forms of public discourse. There’s not less information on TV than there once was. There is so much information that fact is defined as something believed by so many people that TV notices their belief, and truth is measured by how fervently they believe it and how many viewers are watching a show. Just don’t be boring. And keep the ratings up, because Idiot America demands being entertained.”
“In the war on expertise that is central to the rise of Idiot America, TV is both the battlefield and the armory. You don’t need to be credible on TV. You don’t need to be authoritative. You don’t need to be informed. You don’t need to be honest. All these things that we used to associate with what passed for news are no longer factors.”
“TV has become the primary engine of validation for ideas within the culture, once you appear on TV. Once you’re on TV, you become an expert with or without expertise because once you’re on TV, you are speaking to the Gut and the Gut is a moron as anyone who’s ever tossed a golf club, punched a wall, or kicked a lawn mower knows.”
“The Gut is a churning repository of dark and ancient fears. It knows what it knows because it knows how it feels. Hofstadter saw the triumph of the Gut coming. “Intellect is pitted against feeling on the ground that it is somehow inconsistent with raw emotion. It is pitted against character because it is widely believed that intellect stands for cleverness, which transmutes easily into the sly or the diabolical.” If something feels right, it must be treated with the same respect given as something that IS right. If something is felt deeply, it must carry the same weight as something that is true. If there are two sides to every argument – they both must be right or at least equally valid. Dress it up, and the Gut is “common sense,” which rarely is common and even more rarely makes sense. It often comes down to assessing what “Everybody Knows”, even though everybody might be as false as a 3-dollar bill to the truth of things.”
I didn’t catch the name of the “legal analyst” for CNN. And I don’t know her credentials that support her “expertise”, but I’m curious as to how whatever her or CNN’s claim of legal expertise there might be is, stronger than that of somebody like Harvard Constitutional Law Professor Lawrence Tribe or Conservative Judge Michael Luttig.