Opinion: The Supreme Court could correct Mitch McConnell’s big mistake
Editor’s note: Dean Obeidallah, a former lawyer, is host of the daily SiriusXM radio show “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” Follow him up Threads. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinions on CNN.
Dean Obeidallah
Supreme Court justices can do this by being the most recent Decision of the Colorado Supreme Court, which found that Trump participated in an insurrection and was therefore “according to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the United States is disqualified from holding the office of President.”
As a reminder, shortly after January 6, 2021, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for incitement of insurrection. In this single article of impeachment – that of 10 Republicans in the House of Representatives and was approved by all Democrats in the House of Commons – became Section 3 of the 14th Amendment as the reason for initiating the proceedings called .
Although the Senate fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump, the vote was supported by a simple majority (57-43), including seven Republicans. That means the majority of both houses of Congress voted to remove Trump from office given his role in the January 6 insurrection.
After the votes were counted, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke up Trumpsharp for his actions to critisize. Is explainedthat on January 6, 2021, “American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to prevent a particular democratic project that they did not like. He then clarified that Trump was to blame: “They did this, because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man in the world – because he was angry about losing an election.”
McConnell added: “Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President (Mike) Pence was in danger, even as the mob carrying Trump flags beat police officers and broke through the barriers, the president sent another tweet saying he attacked his vice president.”
The GOP Senate leader went on to criticize Trump’s response during the attack, saying that “a mob attacked the Capitol in his name” and former aides and allies begged him to publicly call off the attack. “But the president didn’t act quickly,” McConnell said. “Instead, according to public reports, he contentedly watched the chaos unfold. He stuck to his plan to overturn the election.”
However, despite these strong words, McConnell voted to acquit because Trump was already out of office at the time of the trial and, in the senator’s opinion, “we have no authority to convict and disqualify a former incumbent who is now a private citizen. ” If the Senate had convicted Trump instead, he would have him from running for federal office again can exclude .
Regardless of whether McConnell was right from a constitutional perspective, the courts now have the power to “disqualify a former incumbent who is now a private citizen.” That’s exactly what the Colorado Supreme Court did with its 4: 3 verdict did. Like the court stated, Trump’s goal of the insurrection, which he “self-conceived and initiated,” was to “prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election and halt the peaceful transfer of power.” And like McConnell, who pointed out that Trump did not act quickly to end the insurrection, presented the Colorado Supreme Court determined that Trump “continued to support” him with his tweet that day targeting Pence.
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No one knows for sure how the U.S. Supreme Court will decide this case. The question of whether Trump will formally appeal the Colorado ruling, as he has promisedhas largely been lost in the discussion.
But like I did on my SiriusXM radio show on Thursday Mario Nicolais – one of the lawyers who won the case to bar Trump from the Colorado election – Trump must assess the risk that the US Supreme Court could rule against him. In that case, Trump would be permanently barred from holding office, while in Colorado – a state he lost to Joe Biden by more than 13 points in 2020 – he would only be barred from voting if the ruling stands.
If Trump appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court hears the case, he will have the opportunity to uphold the U.S. Constitution by censuring Trump for his role in the January 6th insurrection, which is a violation of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment excluded from all offices. And if they were to right this past wrong, they would feel like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning.
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2023-12-24 18:31:02
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