If Trump is acquitted, 14th Amendment could be used to bar him from office
A little-known section of a Reconstruction-era amendment is gaining attention as another possible avenue for holding President Donald Trump accountable for the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol.
Trump — who has impeached by the House on Wednesday — spoke to his supporters at a rally last week and told them to march on Capitol Hill.
Rioters then stormed the Capitol as Congress was certifying the Electoral College results. Five people have died, including Capitol Police Officer
Brian Sicknick.
The Senate trial is expected to come after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Some experts have brought up Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitutionas another way to hold Trump responsible.
WHAT IS SECTION 3 OF THE 14TH AMENDMENT?
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to everyone “born or naturalized in the United States,” including formerly enslaved people. It also provided citizens equal protection under the law.
Tucked in the amendment is Section 3, which gives Congress
authority to bar certain public officials who take part in insurrection or rebellion from holding office.
“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,” the section reads.
The section was aimed at former Confederates as a way to prevent them from holding office after the Civil War, though it doesn’t specifically name them.
“The language in Section 3 applies to anybody who has made an oath to the Constitution and then violates that oath,” Eric Foner, an award-winning
historian and professor at Columbia University, told The Washington Post. “It’s pretty simple.”
The House’s article of impeachment accuses Trump of “inciting violence against the government of the United
States.”
HOW COULD IT APPLY TO TRUMP?
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment could be a way to prevent Trump — who has floated a 2024 bid for president — from getting on the ballot if he were to try to seek office again, Gerard Magliocca, an Indiana University law professor who has studied the section, told CNN.
“It’s something more than a censure, which just says, ‘you were bad and don’t do it again,’ right? But it’s something less than an impeachment because it doesn’t require an impeachment trial and the two thirds vote in the Senate and so on,” Magliocca told CNN. “So it’s a way of thinking about this in a more of a compromise kind of fashion.” So how would that work? Congress would vote by a simple majority that Section 3 applies, and the courts would likely have to get involved, Magliocca told The Post, saying it’s “not just something that Congress can do”
Kate Shaw, ABC News legal analyst and Cardozo Law professor, agreed courts would likely get involved.
“I think it would require Congress to pass a law ... saying that what happened on Jan. 6, before it and around it, was insurrection under the Constitution and thus (Trump) is disqualified,” Shaw said, per ABC. “They would have to make some findings about why this qualifies as insurrection. What does insurrection mean in 2021?”