Anti-Trump ‘lawfare’ by Democratic Party activists and Never Trump Republicans aimed at knocking Donald Trump off the ballot over his supposed involvement in an insurrection continues. A lawsuit filed by the Democrat-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit seeking to have Trump knocked off the ballot.
“Having disqualified himself from public office by violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, Donald Trump must be removed from the ballot, according to a lawsuit filed today by six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters including former state, federal and local officials, represented by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the firms Tierney Lawrence Stiles LLC, KBN Law, LLC and Olson Grimsley Kawanabe Hinchcliff & Murray LLC.,” CREW said in a press release posted on its website.
“Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, also known as the Disqualification Clause, bars any person from holding federal or state office who took an ‘oath…to support the Constitution of the United States’ and then has ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.’ On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump stood before the nation and took an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Donald Trump Suits Aim to Disenfranchise GOP Voters
An irony in these suits aimed at knocking Trump off the ballot is they aim to disenfranchise millions of voters who want to vote for the former president, which is at the core of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against Trump. Thus, it seems that voter disenfranchisement and democracy only matter when the outcome advantages the Democratic Party.
Democrats likely rationalize this disenfranchisement of millions of Republican voters by claiming they are traitors who are not entitled to constitutional protections of their right to vote. Anti-Trumpers are creating precedents that will be hard to unwind, and they will rue the day when their precedents are turned against them.
Their shortsightedness with regard to the judicial filibuster is an example because former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid created a precedent that Republicans later used to remove the filibuster of Supreme Court nominations. What comes around inevitably goes around.
Could Republican voters sue these groups and individuals seeking to knock Trump off the ballot for violating THEIR 14th Amendment rights to equal protection under the law?
And would these suits have been filed had Joe Biden been up by 10 points over Donald Trump in the polls? These suits seem rooted in a strategy of desperation.
“Joe Biden, Democrats, and Never Trumpers are scared to death because they see polls showing President Trump winning in the general election,” a Trump campaign spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Dershowitz Warns About Bad Precedent Set by Suit
Former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz warns these lawsuits could set a bad precedent considering that those pushing them are saying that what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, was an “insurrection” just because they say so. The Insurrection Act of 1807 gives the president and the president alone the authority to declare an insurrection is underway, not Congress, not the courts, not Democratic Party activists or Never Trump Republicans.
“He said… ‘I thought it would be easier and smoother to go [via] the 14th Amendment’ – well, of course. You don’t need any proof. You don’t need [a] 50 percent vote in the House. You don’t need a two-thirds vote in the Senate. You don’t need specific charges: treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. You don’t need due process,” Dershowitz said. “You [would] just need a couple of secretaries of state, Prof. Laurence Tribe and Adam Schiff to say it’s our opinion that this is an insurrection. We don’t think what happened after the George Floyd killing was an insurrection. We don’t think what happened with open borders or sanctuary cities is an insurrection. But we do think this was an insurrection.”
Could Democrats Run Afoul of Arbitrary Insurrection Claims?
Could Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin and other Democrats still in Congress who objected to Republican electoral votes in 2001, 2005, or 2017 be sued as insurrectionists, or Democrat activists who talked in 2016 about disrupting the Electoral College? Could Democrats who signed a letter supporting Antifa rioters after the Jun. 1, 2020 attempt to storm the White House thus be branded as insurrectionists based on a Trump precedent and be removed from the ballot?
Democrats including Vice President Kamala Harris signed a letter supporting the George Floyd rioters and protesting against Trump’s desire to invoke the insurrection act. So, if Trump’s comments supporting the Capitol demonstrators and rioters are insurrectionists then could Harris’s name be stricken under the 14th Amendment too should Trump supporters file a suit?
If an insurrection is an insurrection just because political activists of an opposing party say so, then those currently on the anti-Trump should watch out if and when the political winds shift. They will regret it.
The rule of law is not when political activists insist on something based on arbitrary subjective opinions.
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
