Donald Trump Can’t Be President Given ‘Abundant Evidence’ in Capitol Riots, Says Conservative Experts

Conservative experts allege that Donald Trump might not be able to serve as president because of a clause in the Constitution that prohibits those who have participated in an insurrection from holding public office.

The two well-known conservative legal academics support originalism, an approach to interpretation that looks for the Constitution's original meaning. They are active members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization, and have purported this interpretation of the Constitution that clearly prohibits the former president from holding office again, per Raw Story.

The academics, Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas and William Baude of the University of Chicago spent more than a year researching the issue before reporting their conclusions to The New York Times. The Constitution states that anyone who took an oath of office cannot hold office if they "have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."

“When we started out, neither of us was sure what the answer was,” Professor Baude said to NYT. “People were talking about this provision of the Constitution. We thought, ‘We’re constitutional scholars, and this is an important constitutional question. We ought to figure out what’s really going on here'," he added. "And the more we dug into it, the more we realized that we had something to add.”

“Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on January 6,” the professor summarized the study's conclusion.

Of course, a law review paper won't change the fact that Trump is the current front-runner for the Republican nomination and that voters may still decide whether his actions were justified. However, the breadth and complexity of the clause could attract and support litigation from other candidates and regular voters who claim that the Constitution disqualifies him from holding office. “There are many ways that this could become a lawsuit presenting a vital constitutional issue that potentially the Supreme Court would want to hear and decide,” Professor Paulsen said.

Trump has already been indicted in connection with his attempts to rig the 2020 election, and might soon face an indictment in Georgia for a second election-related offense. These offenses may result in jail time or other forms of punishment. The clause under consideration in the new article is focused on a different issue: Mr. Trump's eligibility for office.

According to the study, there is “abundant evidence” that Trump took part in an insurrection. This evidence includes his attempts to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, his use of fraud and intimidation to change vote counts, his encouragement of phony elector slates, his pressure on the vice president to break the law, his call for the march on the Capitol, and his prolonged silence during the attack itself.

References:

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-disqualified-by-insurrection/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/us/trump-jan-6-insurrection-conservatives.html