Donald Trump filed his reply brief on Monday — the last court filing from the parties before the Supreme Court hears oral argument Thursday on whether states can keep him off ballots in November. The brief begins by bragging about Trump’s recent GOP primary wins — implying that it would be wrong to apply the Constitution to a popular candidate — and desperately comparing the legal effort against him to the “socialist dictatorship in Venezuela … excluding the leading opposition candidate for president from the ballot.”
From there, his lawyers push arguments that have largely been picked apart by briefs already filed on the high court docket in this case, including the ahistorical notion that the president isn’t an “officer” who can be disqualified under the 14th Amendment. Among the other adventurous claims they advance is that Trump couldn’t be barred from running for office but only from holding office. His attorneys liken the argument against him to a state blocking a 34-year-old from the ballot, “even if that candidate will turn 35 before Inauguration Day, on the ground that he is ‘presently disqualified’ from holding office.” (The age requirement for the presidency is 35.)
But that’s not a great comparison. Unless a person dies, he or she will inevitably become older with the passage of time. Conversely, while Congress can vote to remove a Section 3 “disability,” there isn’t any inevitable process to erase the insurrectionist actions that disqualify one from office. Whether the Supreme Court intends to keep Trump’s 2024 hopes alive may become clearer at Thursday’s hearing.
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