Trump swore a presidential oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution, but the text of the 14th Amendment says it applies to those who have sworn oaths to “support” the Constitution, Blue pointed out the sematic difference in an Oct. 6 filing in the case.
Both oaths “put a weighty burden on the oath-taker,” but those who wrote the amendment were aware of the difference, Blue argued.
“The framers of the 14th Amendment never intended for it to apply to the President,” he wrote.
Absolutely despicable.
That’s a lawyer arguing that a president is free to engage in insurrection because of a semantic difference between the 14th Amendment and the wording of the Oath of Office sworn by the president.
All of these people are fine with America descending into a totalitarian dictatorship, presumably thinking they’re the clever ones who would be doing the dictatoring.
“The framers of the 14th Amendment never intended for it to apply to the President,” he wrote.
This is right up there with Nixon’s “if the president does it, it isn’t illegal.”
Nixon believed that and Trump believes that the president can declassify documents with his mind.
I feel like if they’re going to make this argument in court, they should be forced to adopt the position in their campaign material.
“TRUMP 2024: I never swore to support the Constitution”
It’s preposterous. Laughably absurd.
I’ve thought this many times in the last 7 years, but the whole set up is built on the basic premise that “the people” would not elect someone who will so obviously act against their interests.
If voters want to elect an insurrectionist then none of it really matters. The horse has bolted. The egg is scrambled. What a mess.
It would be slightly more palatable if the President was elected by popular vote. With our current system, some nut jobs in small population states and a couple “swing” states can choose to install a dictator.
This is a bit like the “take the warning labels off and let the problem sort itself out” idea, and I can see a little merit in it, but unfortunately the 50% who need the warning labels are going to kill everyone.
A more optimistic view is that these people know that the legal standpoints they are taking are absurd and/or preposterous, but they also know they Trump is dumb enough to buy it and keep the meter running until he’s incarcerated.
On the other hand, I could be giving them too much credit
I read “until he’s incinerated.” Freudian slip, perhaps.
It’s about as nourishing to the intellect as “surprise mechanics” are to loot boxes. “Preserve, protect and defend” are all ways of “supporting” something.
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I don’t see how the republican party can believe they have any chance of winning with trump.
Most of the realistic ones don’t. The problem for them is that they have even less of a chance of winning without him.
The MAGA wing has effectively split the party, but did so in such a way that either the moderates go along with whatever the MAGA wing wants, or nobody wins because the moderates don’t have the numbers to push anything through without the MAGA wing, and vice versa. And since MAGA has absolutely no problems with everything coming to a grinding halt and watching it all burn, the moderates have little choice but to do what MAGA wants if they want to be able to accomplish anything at all.
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If trump is nominated, I think the probability of trump being elected to the presidency is zero, or it will be zero when election day rolls around.
I said the same thing in 2016
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If trump is nominated, I think the probability of trump being elected to the presidency is zero, or it will be zero when election day rolls around.
I remember thinking that in 2016.
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If they were actually moderate they would work with the Democrats.
If only the system could accommodate more than two options. The US voting system is the biggest gerrymander in history but neither party wants to fix it.
They’re in quite a pickle. Half of them don’t want Trump, the other half will only vote for Trump (even if he’s in prison). MAGA is tearing the party apart and the house speaker situation is just the latest manifestation of that.
Isn’t Colorado pretty blue anyway?
Getting tossed in a state like Florida would absolutely kill his chances though.
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we are where we are now because enough people are, in fact, that stupid.
never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. -g.carlin
Yes, but if Trump isn’t on the ballot some of the Trumpists who would have gone and voted straight Republican are going to stay home instead which could have an impact on close down-ballot races, like say Colorado’s 3rd House seat for example.
It’s actually considered a battleground state. Where it could go red if enough people don’t vote. Look where Boeberts from.
Trump’s lawyers argued:
“If they wanted to include in the reach of Section Three, they could have done so by expanding the language of which type of oath would bring an ‘officer’ under the strictures of Section Three. They did not do so, and no number of semantical arguments will change this simple fact. As such, Section Three does not apply to President Trump.”
So let me get this right. They used a whole bunch of semantical arguments (and a level of mental gymnastics that would put the Olympics to shame) to argue that the rules don’t apply to trump, then turned around and said that you can’t use semantical arguments to make a counterpoint. What the fuck? Did these lawyers really just make a “no take backsies” argument in an actual courtroom?
I know Trump is down to working with dime-store lawyers that are barely qualified to argue jaywalking cases, but come on. More of these judges need to start slapping these lawyers with fines and sanctions for wasting the courts time with such frivilous motions, hearings, and arguments. I’m not saying that they can’t try to give a zealous defense, but there’s a difference between “zealous” and “absurd”.
So they’re textualists until it applies to them…
“Engaged in insurrection” means exactly that.
It doesn’t mean they succeeded, it doesn’t mean they just thought about it, it certainly doesn’t say anything about an act of Congress.
He assembled the mob, and literally gave them their marching orders that January 6th.
If that isn’t worth at least a participation trophy, then I don’t know what is.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
DENVER (AP) — A Colorado judge has rejected an attempt by former President Donald Trump to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to keep him off the state ballot, ruling that his objections on free-speech grounds did not apply.
The law also conflicted with a state requirement to get the question about Trump’s eligibility resolved quickly — before a Jan. 5 deadline for presidential candidates’ names to certified for the Colorado primary, Wallace wrote.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington claims in its lawsuit that putting Trump on the ballot in Colorado would violate a provision of the 14th Amendment that bars people who have “engaged in insurrection” against the Constitution from holding office.
A Denver-based attorney for Trump, Geoffrey Blue, didn’t immediately return a phone message Thursday seeking comment.
The Colorado case is one of several involving Trump that stand to test the Civil War-era constitutional amendment, which has never been ruled on by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The lawsuits also involve one of Trump’s arguments in criminal cases filed against him in Washington, D.C., and Georgia for his attempt to overturn his 2020 loss — that he is being penalized for engaging in free speech to disagree with the validity of the vote tally.
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