Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Monday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that former President Donald Trump was already “constitutionally disqualified from holding office, having participated in insurrection.”
Raskin said, “The historians and political scientists we have spoken to have been very clear about this. The surest sign of a successful coup coming is a recently failed coup where the coup plotters and insurrectionists got to diagram the weaknesses in the existing structure. And so if there’s impunity, if they think they can operate with impunity and under the cover of darkness, then they are undoubtedly going to come back again. So I think that everything we know about what’s taken place around the world with coups and what’s taken place historically tells us that there must be consequences, and not just for the hundreds of foot soldiers who are already facing the music and many of whom have already been convicted or pled guilty, but also for people all the way at the top, the masterminds and the ringleaders.”
He added, “Constitutionally, the answer to your question is right there in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. After the Civil War, during the Reconstruction, it was the Republican Party which insisted that anyone who has sworn an oath to support the Constitution but who violates that oath by engaging in insurrection or rebellion may never hold federal or state office again. That’s a constitutional disqualification from office. So my colleague Liz Cheney today said that you know, Donald Trump was ethically unqualified, which is absolutely true, but he’s also constitutionally disqualified from holding office, having participated in insurrection. I hope that is a discussion that America is ready to have.”
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