Raskin: Trump Doesn’t Need Criminal Conviction to Be Disqualified for Presidency

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Wednesday on CNN’s “Laura Coates Live” that former President Donald Trump does not need to be criminally convicted of insurrection for the 14th Amendment to disqualify him as president.

Raskin said, “The authors of the 14th Amendment themselves dealt with that question. They felt that if someone sets themselves at war against the Constitution, and engages in the most profound anti-democratic act of trying to overthrow an election by installing themselves in office with an insurrection, then at that point, they are constitutionally barred. So, when people say, it is undemocratic what the voters decide, that’s like saying, let Vladimir Putin run for president, even though he’s not a U.S. citizen because it would be undemocratic to deny that choice to the voters. The Constitution has already made that judgment.”

He continued, “I think what we need is a judicial determination of whether or not an impeachment by the House, 57 to 43 vote in the Senate, enough to establish as a civil proposition that he’s engaged in insurrection or whether you need additional adjudicated fact finding by the court. But nowhere does it say that you need to have a criminal conviction in order to make section three of the 14th Amendment apply.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN