As you well know, the Democrats in Congress have made another massive push to impeach former President Donald Trump.
Now, of course, the plan isn’t to get him kicked out of the highest office in our nation, but, as he is a president who has only served one term, bar him from ever having the chance to win that title again.
However, many in Congress have come to the former president’s aid.
As of Tuesday, 45 senators voted in favor of Republican Senator Rand Paul’s motion that the whole impeachment process was not only a sham but unconstitutional.
Now, as you know, 45 is not the majority in the 100-member Senate. However, it is well over a third. And according to current Senate rules, President Donald Trump’s impeachment would have to be agreed upon by a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes.
And so, as Paul stated in a recent tweet, this makes the “‘ trial’… dead on arrival in the Senate.”
But, of course, the Dems are giving up. They never will.
Their next plan of action comes from Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia and Republican Senator and Trump hater Susan Collins of Maine. Together, the pair have concocted a censure resolution that, if passed, would seemingly bar Trump from ever running for office again.
According to Kaine, this alternative, while still a way off from succeeding, would only require 60 votes to pass and would basically be proof that Trump encouraged insurrection against the American government.
The resolution states that it would “declare the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, an insurrection against the Constitution of the United States because they were trying to stop us from doing our constitutional duty in counting certified Electoral votes.”
Furthermore, “It would find that President Trump gave aid and comfort to the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol by preaching a big lie about election fraud and encouraging to gather in D.C. for a ‘wild’ event and encouraging them to go up and raised hell with Congress.”
And according to the 14th Amendment, Section 3, Kaine and Collins argue this would bar Trump from ever being allowed to run for public office again.
Per the 14th Amendment, “No Person shall be a Senator, 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.”
There are just a few problems with this argument.
First, as a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, Steve Vladeck explains, the courts would have to decide several factors. One would be in the title of “office of the United States” can be applied to the president.
And then, if it does, such a resolution would practically only applicable at the state level.
“Assuming the phrase does apply to the president, if the Senate passed a censure resolution declaring that Trump engaged in insurrection, that might trigger a state to block him from the ballot if he decided to run in 2024. Trump could then sue, and the courts would have to decide the issue,” per NBC News.
Essentially, according to The Hill, “Trying to use a resolution to bar the president from future office would put Congress in the middle of murky legal and political waters.”
And that’s even if it makes it that far.
At this point, there isn’t much beyond political bias to say that President Trump ever did anything to encourage insurrection.
I mean, if we just look at the transcript acquired by U.S. News, we can see that Trump did encourage voters to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
And then, after the chaos began, Trump was quick to condemn those actions, saying things like “remain peaceful,” engage in “no violence,” and “respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue.”
He even later released a video reiterating this and encouraging protesters to “go home.”
Doesn’t exactly sound very divisive to me…
Let’s just say; I don’t think this method of potentially banning Trump from office will hold much water either.