“He might already be ineligible for 2024:” Conservative legal professor warns voters “Forget the Trump trials”

Two conservative law professors claim Donald Trump is ineligible to run for president due to the 14th Amendment and add that this has to be resolved before the elections.

Many scholars raised concerns

William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, conservative law professors, wrote a paper arguing that the provision is intended to “embrace a broad range of willful participatory conduct” as qualifying for having “engaged in” insurrection or rebellion. They claim that Trump’s actions and pressure on Mike Pence meet the standards from the 14th Amendment, section 3.

Law professor Edward Foley warned

The professor talked on CNN about the paper written by his colleagues, Paulsen and Baude. Foley, the constitutional law professor at Ohio State and director of the Election Law program at the university, recently wrote, “Forget the Trump trials, he might already be ineligible for 2024.”

The process

Professor Foley told CNN, “If Trump is allowed to be on the ballot and then wins, I think he needs to be permitted to take office.” The reasoning – that would be fair to the voters. But, if he is “already disqualified from being president, even if he wins, then he shouldn’t be on the ballot.”

The voters have rights

The professor further explained, “There needs to be a trial” so the voters can choose from candidates eligible for office. Foley added this does not have to be a criminal trial, but the point would be to clarify Trump’s action after the 2020 elections and on January 6.

The issue will reach the Supreme Court

The host and Foley agreed that this needed to be resolved before the following summer, with Foley adding, “It’s essential to do this before the election rather than afterward.”

The ultimate crisis 

If not, Congress could vote in a manner that would be “the ultimate crisis” since it would betray the voters.

The insurrection clause

The clause states, “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

A Republican filed a lawsuit

GOP long-shot presidential hopeful John Anthony Castro filed a suit in New Hampshire. A tax lawyer in Florida also filed a lawsuit.

The lawyer’s filing was dismissed

Still, it was dismissed by Judge Robin L. Rosenberg, an Obama appointee, because “Plaintiffs lack standing to challenge defendant’s qualifications for seeking the presidency, as the injuries alleged are not cognizable and not particular to them.”

Other supporters

Senator Kaine said, “If you are unwilling to say that the behavior of Donald Trump trying to overturn the peaceful transfer of power is a disqualifier, if you pledge, despite that, to vote for him, if you pledge, despite that, to pardon him should you be elected – it shows that you don’t have the moral compass that you need to be the leader of the greatest nation in the world.”

Liberal groups want Trump off the ballot

Two groups also filed lawsuits citing “insurrection or rebellion,” and it will likely trigger a chain of lawsuits and appeals across the country that ultimately would lead to the U.S. Supreme Court

Trump’s popularity

The Virginia Senator, Kaine, explained, “I think there is a collective trauma that still is kind of working its way through the system,” adding that Covid 19 brought “painful” years of job and personal losses.