Supreme Court judges are willing to allow Donald Trump to contest elections. usa elections

Whether or not Donald Trump can return to the White House, and before that, whether he can even run for office, depends on whether or not Donald Trump can return to the White House in light of his actions over the past weeks, a complex of 95 words filled with subordinate clauses. How to interpret the phrase. And during January 6, 2021, the day a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. In an oral hearing before the Supreme Court of the United States this Thursday, the meaning of that phrase was debated for more than two hours. The judge will hand down sentencing in the coming weeks. Without being able to draw definitive conclusions earlier, their intervention suggests they are mostly willing to let Trump run for office. Of the nine justices, six are conservatives – three of them appointed by Trump himself – and three are progressives.

The session has served to show that the clause in question, the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment, which regulates disqualification for rebellion, leaves more doubts than certainties. It is clear that it was included in the US Constitution to prevent Confederate rebels from re-infiltrating the system after the Civil War (1861–1865), but it is not clear who enforces it and how. , applies when and applies to who does it.

Each of these issues has been debated in a session held inside the Supreme Court building with the expectation of unique opportunities; There were days of public queues, a press gallery that had not looked so full since landmark cases like the approval of marriage between people of the same sex in 2015, and protesters for and against Trump at the door. The big cable television networks also managed to turn the morning into a television spectacle, despite the fact that strict Supreme Court rules do not allow access to cameras.

The justices have been called to rule on the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision, which on March 5 disqualified Trump from running in the primaries in that state — so the decision has been rushed — but the Supreme Court seems to think This principle will be applicable in dozens of states. In Maine, a similar disqualification is pending a decision by the high court judges. The Supreme Court has had no such role in election matters since the case bush vs gore

Which resolved the dispute over vote recount in Florida in the 2000 elections and ultimately awarded the presidency to George W. Bush.

Trump’s attorney, Jonathan Mitchell, has defended that the constitutional amendment does not prevent anyone from running for office, but does prevent anyone from “serving” the office in any case, which is the term used in the law. The rule allows Congress to lift disqualification by a two-thirds majority, but that provision would mean nothing if a candidate is never allowed to be elected. Mitchell has argued, “We do not know whether President Trump would be pardoned if he wins the election before he takes the oath of office on January 20, 2025.” Many judges have accepted that argument. Conservative Samuel Alito said, “The amendment is about holding office, not running for office.”

Mitchell also says that this clause does not provide for the presidency, as it is quoted that a rebel “shall not be able to be a Senator or Representative in Congress, nor an elector to elect a President and Vice-President.” nor will he hold any office.” civil or military office,” in an order that appears to be descending and does not mention the President. And that in this case, charge (Office) This does not include the White House tenant.

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It is also unclear whether this is a standard that is automatically executed or if it has to be developed by Congress, or even if Congress must establish whether someone has participated in an insurrection.

Trump’s defense also says the section applies to anyone who participated in the insurrection while “an official.” (Officer) United States”, a term which, according to his interpretation, does not apply to the tenant of the White House. His defense argues that this expression appears in three other constitutional provisions and in all of them excludes the President from its scope. Is placed.

Going into detail on the phrase, another argument from Trump’s legal team is that he did not take an “oath to support the Constitution” upon taking office, but rather the presidential oath is to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.” Constitution. Furthermore, he pointed out that he had not taken the oath as an “Officer of the United States”, which would have excluded him from this section as well.

In the process, moreover, Trump’s defense has stated that “the events of January 6, 2021, were not an insurrection in the sense in which that term is used in the Third Clause (of the Fourteenth Amendment)”, but that It fits into the “long history of political protests that have turned violent” in the United States.

Trump presents himself as a victim

The former president appeared this Thursday at his club in Mar-a-Lago (Florida) after the Supreme Court hearing to present himself as a victim and say that he did nothing wrong on January 6 and that all There was an attempt at “intervention”. “Democrats’ Election.” “I think it was an insurrection caused by Nancy Pelosi,” he said, adding the absurdity was that Pelosi had to go into hiding to protect herself because she was the target of attackers. Trump has expressed confidence in winning the case: “I think today’s presentation was very good,” he said.

As Trump’s lawyer said this Thursday, what happened during the attack on the Capitol was “a riot, not an insurrection”, because an insurrection would require an organized, concerted and violent effort to overthrow the government, a Arguments that don’t convince progressive Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

According to Mitchell, even if those acts were considered rebellion, the then President would not have taken part in it. And in any case, the disqualification will apply only to the person convicted and not only to the accused. In fact, Sessions did not spend much time analyzing whether the attack on the Capitol was an insurrection and whether Trump participated in it. This reinforces the idea that the justices will resolve the issue by remaining strictly legal, without getting into questions of political appreciation, such as whether what happened in the attack on the Capitol can be considered a failed coup attempt. The Colorado Supreme Court accepted the report of the congressional commission, which investigated what happened on January 6, 2021, as valid evidence to determine whether Trump is an insurrectionist.

The person who most fully penetrates the essence of the issue is attorney Jason Murray, who represented Colorado voters who challenged Trump’s participation in that state’s primaries. “We are here because, for the first time since the War of 1812, our nation’s capital was violently attacked. “For the first time in history, an attack was instigated by a sitting President of the United States to disrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential power,” he said. “By participating in the insurrection against the Constitution, President Trump disqualifies himself from public office. As we have heard before, President Trump’s main argument is that this Court should create an exclusive exemption to the Third Section that would apply to him and him alone. It states that the third section disqualifies all oath-breaking recusants, except a former president who has never previously held another state or federal office. He said, “There is no probable cause for such a waiver and the Court should reject the claim that the Founders made an extraordinary mistake.”

However, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, both conservatives, put him on the spot by asking whether different states have different rulings and criteria on whether a candidate has participated in an insurrection and whether he or she should be disqualified. How to wrap it up. Chief Justice John Roberts himself has suggested the possibility that if Colorado is allowed to remove Trump from the ballot, other states could choose to veto Biden. Progressive Elena Kagan also seemed uncomfortable with the prospect of each state making decisions according to its own criteria.

Colorado state Attorney General Shannon Stevenson has defended his territory’s court’s decision. “Petitioner contends that Colorado should place him on the ballot because of the possibility of a supermajority (two-thirds) in Congress that would eliminate his legal disability. Under this doctrine, Colorado and all other states must accommodate this possibility, not just for the primaries, but throughout the presidential election and until a disqualified candidate is sworn into office. There is nothing in the Constitution that deprives the states of the power to hold presidential elections in this manner,” he said during his final intervention.

Later, the President of the Supreme Court adjourned the session, and the attendees left the grand building of the Supreme Court with the famous 95 words still in their minds. That sounds like a lot, but it’s just two sentences. The first says: “Whoever has first, as a member of Congress, as an officer of the United States, or as a member of the legislative assembly of any State, or as an executive or judicial officer thereof, has ratified the Constitution of the United States, Has sworn to support or have taken part in any rebellion or insurrection against the United States or has given aid or facilities to the enemies of the country”. The second is explicit: “However, Congress may, by a two-thirds vote of each House, cure this inability.”

After the oral debate this Thursday, the impression is that those 95 words will ultimately not answer the question of what could prevent Trump from returning to the White House.

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