As the Colorado Supreme Court wrote, January 6 meets the bar for insurrection āunder any viable definitionā of the term. The legal scholar Mark Graber, who has closely studied the Fourteenth Amendmentās history, argues that āinsurrectionā should be understood broadlyāan act of organized resistance to government authority motivated by a āpublic purpose.ā That certainly describes the Capitol riot, in which a violent mob attacked law enforcement and threatened members of Congress and the vice president in order to block the rightful counting of the electoral vote and illegally secure the victory of the losing candidate. The historical record also suggests that the amendmentās requirement that a prospective officeholder must have āengaged in insurrectionā should also be understood broadlyāmeaning that Trumpās speech on the Ellipse that morning and his encouragement of the rioters while they smashed their way through the Capitol more than fit the bill.
Itās the case Trumpās legal team will probably be making, and itās one that a sizeable minority of Coloradoās entirely Democrat-appointed Supreme Court seemed to agree with.
To be clear, thereās only one angle from which I think Trump gets out of this, if we assume a properly functioning legal system (which is itself, unfortunately, not a guarantee in America). For example, the District Court that originally heard this case said that the president was not an āofficerā and thus the insurrection clause does not apply to it. This is patently ridiculous, and contradicts other sections of the US constitution. Obviously a president is an officer of the country over which he presides. A president who is found to have engaged in insurrection should therefore not be allowed to run again.
But until Trump is found guilty in one of the many trials he is currently facing (Fulton County or the DoJ ones would be best), as a matter of law, it wouldnāt seem to follow rule of law to take a legal action that depends on that guilt.
He was found, as a matter of fact, to have engaged in insurrection in the same Colorado district Court case you referenced. I donāt think youāre nearly as informed as you think you are.
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You donāt think Trumpās legal team will make every argument they can? Certainly theyāll try the āpresident isnāt an officer and therefore 14th canāt applyā angle. Theyāll also claim that even if it can apply, it shouldnāt here because he didnāt insurrect.
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