A former deputy independent counsel for the Whitewater-Lewinsky investigation of Bill Clinton dismissed some Democrats’ claims former President Donald Trump can be disqualified from elective office amid his indictments due to the “insurrection” clause in the 14th Amendment.
The amendment, ratified in 1868 which mainly gave all “born or naturalized persons” the right to vote following the Civil War, also has a section prohibiting anyone who previously took a Constitutional oath and has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” from attaining elected office again.
On “The Ingraham Angle” Monday, host Laura Ingraham reported on several Democrats and pundits who suggested Trump disqualified himself from further holding office in the wake of the January 6 Capitol Riot.
One prominent Democrat, House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland, told CNN that Amendment 14 Section III presents a “clear and unequivocal statement” on Trump’s “disqualif[ication].”
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Sol Wisenberg, the former prosector in the Clinton scandals, said the federal courts ruled as far back as 1869 that the insurrection clause is not “self-executing” – meaning it would take congressional action to enforce against Trump.
He cited Supreme Court Justice Salmon Chase’s declaration of that year, adding that Congress later passed a law mirroring the amendment’s language, which suggests Trump would need to be charged with violating it to even begin any disqualification process.
“The punishment, in addition to the criminal fine is that you cannot ever hold office again. So it’s been done,” he said.
“The idea that you would have some state official, a partisanly-elected state official, disqualify Trump without any kind of due process at all, I think is not going to fly,” Wisenberg said, as Trump faces stiff charges from a pair of local…
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