Trump claims the insurrection clause ‘does not apply’ to the president – or prohibit someone from ‘running for office’
Attorneys for Donald Trump this week argued that the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause does not and cannot apply to a president, or someone running for president, of the United States.
“Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment does not prohibit someone from running for office—it prohibits someone from holding office, and even then, only if Congress chooses not to lift the prohibition,” a Monday filing by the ex-president’s lawyers reads.
The argument was made in response to a recent series of back-and-forth motions and court orders filed in an ongoing Colorado court case. That case is the first lawsuit of any real consequence that aims to bar the 45th president from appearing on the 2024 ballot.
Filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) attorneys on behalf of several voters and anti-Trump conservatives, the lawsuit names Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Trump himself as defendants. The heart of the Colorado case is similar to many such efforts across the country: Trump’s actions leading up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol Complex disqualified him from ever again holding federal elected office under Section III of the Fourteenth Amendment. [Continue reading…]