Attempts to disqualify Trump reach the US Supreme Court

Rarely has a scientific article in a legal journal gone so far. They wrote it for the University of Pennsylvania Law Review two conservative academics, who argued that the answer to the question of what could stop Donald Trump on his way back from the White House had always been there, hidden in the third clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. That little-cited passage of the fundamental text would prevent him from appearing on the ballots again by virtue of his alleged responsibility in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The argument materialized in dozens of lawsuits throughout the country, which crystallized in a ban in two States: Colorado and Maine. This Thursday, the debate on whether or not Trump is authorized to run in the November elections reaches the Supreme Court, whose nine justices have been summoned to hear the oral arguments for and against that scientific article, in which it is already one of the cases (Donald J. Trump v. Norma Anderson et al) of greatest political consequences in recent decades in Washington.

It promises to be a morning of discussion about law, yes, but also about history. The fourteenth is one of the most influential amendments to the Constitution because it was the one that guaranteed, after the abolition of slavery, the equality of all citizens before the law. It was also used to prohibit those who had participated in an insurrection from running for public office again. It was approved in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War (1861-1865), and was about making sure that the rebels could not attack the Union from within again. Beyond those cases, the third clause has been used on very rare occasions, the last one being more than a century ago.

During the hearing, echoes of the Supreme Court's own history will also resonate. The most obvious precedent is the ruling in the case Bush vs. Gore, which settled the dispute over the recount of votes in Florida in the 2000 elections and ended up giving the presidency to George Bush Jr. The oral arguments are expected to last about 80 minutes this Thursday, and they will not result in a decision, but rather the impression of where the votes of each of the judges will go. The current composition of the Supreme Court is six conservative and three liberal magistrates. In his four years in the White House, Trump achieved an unusual milestone: placing three judges of his caliber on the high court.

The ball of Trump's disqualification has been in the court of those nine robes since the end of December, but now is when the rush comes: it is urgent to know the ruling before March 5, a day known as Super Tuesday, the day of the pre-campaign in the one in which the most States agree to vote in the primaries. So it is crucial to know if the name of the Republican candidate favored in all the polls can appear on the ballots. One of those States is Colorado, where a judge concluded that the former president participated in an insurrection, but did not disqualify him because he considered that the constitutional text does not refer to the president's position. The Colorado Supreme Court later changed that criterion. Maine was the second state to join that idea.

The text under discussion says: “No person may be a senator or congressman, an elector for the president or vice president, or hold any civil or military office if, having previously taken an oath of support for the Constitution of the United States, he or she has participated in an insurrection or rebellion against it, or given aid or comfort to its enemies.” The amendment adds that this prohibition can only be annulled with a two-thirds vote of each chamber of Congress.

Legal debate with political consequences

Trump's lawyers cling to that confusing formulation to claim that it cannot be applied to the presidency. They also claim that what Trump did on January 6 does not fall under the definition of insurrection and that the 14th Amendment cannot be applied without the agreement of the Capitol. Analysts hope that the Supreme Court will resolve the issue by remaining only strictly legal without entering into questions of political appreciation, such as whether what happened in the assault on the Capitol can be considered a failed coup attempt, when a mob harangued by the still president during a rally marched towards the headquarters of American democracy to interrupt the process of transferring power to Joe Biden, who won the elections, despite theories of fraud that have been proven false time and time again and that Trump and the theirs were dedicated to disseminating in the previous months.

The Supreme Court also faces a new test on its legitimacy this Thursday. His reputation among citizens is at its lowest levels, and in recent months he has been in the spotlight due to accusations of corruption against judges chosen for life and practically untouchable in the American system. One of the most questioned is the conservative Clarence Thomas, who is accused of having received sumptuous gifts from a powerful Republican donor that he never declared.

From the left-wing media, they have also asked that Thomas abstain from cases that have to do with Trump's responsibility in the attack on the Capitol, given that it has been proven that his wife, the conservative activist Ginni Thomas, pressured dozens of text messages to the White House and lawmakers to overturn Biden's 2020 victory. He also attended the rally Stop the Steal [Detengamos el robo] on Jan. 6 before the attack on the Capitol and told the House committee that investigated the attack in 2022 that she was still convinced Democrats stole the 2020 election.

The Supreme Court hearing comes just two days after Trump's legal team received a hard blow with the decision of the three judges of the Washington Court of Appeals who ruled unanimously that he is not legally immune for the acts committed during his presidency. presidency. The resolution rejected an appeal by the former president against a decision in the same sense by federal judge Tanya Chutkan, in charge of the criminal case for four crimes for the magnate's attempts to alter the results of those elections and for his responsibility in the assault on the Capitol. In that case, again, the last word will correspond to the Supreme Court.

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