Congressional Democrats are reportedly considering a back-up plan – a censure resolution against Donald Trump should this week’s impeachment trial result in acquittal for the former President.
The resolution, according to McClatchy, would bar Trump “from holding future office over his role in the U.S. Capitol riot.”
The Senate impeachment trial began on Tuesday with opening statements and debate between House impeachment managers and the former President’s defense lawyers.
Trump’s lawyers argue that the House impeachment charge is unconstitutional and are calling on the Senate to acquit the former President.
His acquittal seems all but assured with 45 Republican Senators having already voted on a point of order that the trial is unconstitutional.
The Dems’ last hope? Section 3 14th Amendment, a rarely cited Civil War-era provision which allows Congress to bar individuals from holding office if they have “engaged in insurrection.” #14A https://t.co/gsERRGPWgY
— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) February 9, 2021
The Democrat attempt to censure Donald Trump – who is now a private citizen – would invoke Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
It is a rarely cited Civil War-era provision that bars people from holding office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Pushing forward with the plan seems to be a foregone conclusion, as McClatchy notes “the debate among members of Congress is now whether to push for the resolution early this week — as the impeachment trial is first starting — or towards the end.”
Some Democrat lawmakers are hoping the trial itself will “build public support and political momentum” for the censure resolution.
Perfect polarization. Perfectly sad. By 86-12% Republicans say Trump should NOT be convicted by Senate. By 86-11% Democrats say Trump SHOULD be convicted. So after R senators rescue Trump, D senators must censure, forbid his future candidacy, & strip Trump of perks/public $$. 1/2
— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) February 4, 2021
“The reception has been lukewarm so far from Democrats, who would prefer to see the former president convicted in the impeachment trial, and from Republicans, who fear political consequences in barring Trump from office,” McClatchy observes.
Senator Tim Kaine adds, “Right now there’s not enough support on either side.”
If the Senate acquits Trump, however, bitter Democrats could conceivably coalesce behind such a censure resolution and they wouldn’t need any help from the Republicans.
A resolution to censure Trump would require a simple majority vote to pass in the House and Senate.
The Democrats’ planned censure of President Donald Trump should be amended by Republicans to include all the vicious remarks from people who called for violence against the former president.https://t.co/anYCN3YAPC
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) January 30, 2021
The report indicates that Democrats may be playing with fire if they plan to censure Trump following the Senate impeachment trial.
“Some Democratic lawyers warn the strategy could backfire if taken to court and provide Trump with a rallying cry to run again for president in 2024,” it reads.
Legal scholar Jonathan Turley has argued that censuring Trump is a “dangerous” tactic for the nation.
Barring the former President from running again in the future based on a rarely cited provision of the 14th Amendment, without a trial and supermajority vote could open up the floodgates for party’s in power to keep their political opponents out of office.
The trial arguments have not even begun but Democrats are already talking about the options following acquittal. Unfortunately, they are pushing the 14th amendment option. https://t.co/dotXyNKLpr That could give Trump the ultimate vindication in court. https://t.co/qckRlUGgCY
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 9, 2021
“The party in control could bar dozens of its opponents from running for federal office,” Turley explains. “Some Democrats are now demanding such action against Republicans who challenged the election of Joe Biden.”
Indeed, how often have we heard Democrats demand Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz be expelled from Congress?
“This is common in authoritarian countries such as Iran, where leaders often bar their opponents from office,” Turley adds.
The post Report: Democrats Have A Back-Up Plan That Might Still Bar Trump From Running Again If Impeachment Fails appeared first on The Political Insider.
Far-left Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO), a member of the ‘Squad,’ appeared to defend a prison riot that broke out at the downtown St. Louis Justice Center over the weekend.
In a tweet Bush posted on Saturday, she quoted the late Dr. Martin Luther King saying “A riot is the language of the unheard.”
Bush went on to say that she and her team are working to “ensure that the needs of people who are incarcerated are not ignored.”
The freshman Congresswoman also put a more in-depth statement on her Congressional page where she talked about the positivity rates and testing for COVID-19 among those incarcerated.
But it was her apparent support for the riot that broke out on Saturday that became front and center.
“A riot is the language of the unheard.” – Dr. MLK Jr.
I want to talk to my constituents in the window. Their lives and their rights must be protected.
My team and I are working to ensure that the urgent needs of people who are incarcerated are not ignored. https://t.co/wMq8ecyLQ2
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) February 7, 2021
According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, roughly 115 inmates at the Justice Center jimmied already-faulty lock systems and freed themselves from cells.
The fourth floor of the building was taken over as inmates set fires, clogged drains, broke windows, and threw furniture down onto the sidewalk.
While no inmates were reported to have been injured, one corrections officer who was attacked by inmates is recovering from injuries. Mayor Lyda Krewson says damage totals are “way into the thousands of dollars.”
Inmates set fire, smash windows at downtown St. Louis jail https://t.co/oaFKdvP01G pic.twitter.com/VeKdCv6x3n
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch (@stltoday) February 6, 2021
RELATED: AOC Declares She ‘Will Not Apologize’ For Saying Cruz Tried ‘To Get Me Killed’
Bush’s comments that seemed to support, or at least justify, the riot drew rebuke and questions.
The National Republican Congressional Committee wondered aloud if any of Bush’s fellow Democrats would also justify the riot at the St. Louis City Jail.
.@CoriBush spent her weekend praising violent felons who injured a prison guard.
Will any of her fellow Democrats disavow Bush's dangerous rhetoric? https://t.co/ns7je54qU8
— NRCC (@NRCC) February 8, 2021
The Daily Caller covered Seattle conservative radio host Jason Rantz, who called Bush a “total failure” and said to Fox News’s Harris Faulkner, “Well, I can look at it and say that Cori Bush is a total fraud unless suddenly she’s decided to change her position on impeachment.”
Rantz was referring to President Trump, who was impeached for allegedly inciting the Capitol riot on January 6th.
Bush voted to impeach Trump, with the official charge in the article of impeachment reading, “Donald John Trump engaged in high Crimes and Misdemeanors by inciting violence against the Government of the United States.”
‘Cori Bush Is A Total Fraud’: Journalist Jason Rantz Slams Democratic Rep For Appearing To Defend Prison Riot https://t.co/3Ickr7Y1Am via @dailycaller
— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) February 8, 2021
RELATED: Bill Maher Claims Christianity Is To Blame For Capitol Hill Riot
Just a little over a month ago however, Congresswoman Bush was singing a very different tune when it came to the subject of riots.
In a report from ‘The Hill”, Bush claimed that, “had the rioters that stormed the Capitol earlier in the day been black, they would have been shot.”
The only person shot on January 6th was a white woman, unarmed Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by Capitol Police.
My team and I are safe. I am in disbelief. I can’t believe domestic terrorists are roaming around inside the Capitol.
I’m remembering being brutalized and treated like a domestic terrorist just for protesting to keep my people alive.
St. Louis: you’re in my heart right now.
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) January 6, 2021
In another report from CNN, Bush called former President Donald Trump the “white supremacist in chief” and described the storming of the Capitol, “a white supremacist insurrection.”
“Madam Speaker, St. Louis and I rise in support of the article of impeachment against Donald J Trump. If we fail to remove a White supremacist President who incited a white supremacist insurrection, it’s communities like Missouri’s First District that suffer the most,”
While Bush was careful to use the term “insurrection” instead of “riot,” Twitter users were quick to wonder where exactly the Squad member stood on riots.
Major yikes. Are you back to supporting violence again already?
— Patrick (@PMC713) February 7, 2021
Aren’t they just thugs like the Capitol rioters ? Or were the Capitol rioters the “unheard” also? Which way do you want it ?
— Foleybräu (@foleybrewing) February 7, 2021
So what happened on Jan. 6th was the language of the unheard? Im glad we can agree
— Dylan Norris-Hinkle
(@DNorrisHinkle) February 7, 2021
“A riot is the language of the unheard, as long as it goes with my narrative” -Cori Bush
— Billy Bolton (@BillyGBolton) February 7, 2021
So riots are back on the menu?
— Faye Hausendorff (@FayeH321) February 7, 2021
All riots are equal but some riots are more equal than others. In @CoriBush ‘s world, Animal Farm is an instruction guide.
— zulupapaquebec (@zulupapaquebec) February 7, 2021
One user finished Martin Luther King’s quote for Bush, pointing out that the august Reverend opposed wanton violence:
“Riots are socially destructive and self-defeating… So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.”
Dr. MLK Jr.
(in the same speech Cori Bush is quoting)— Boomieleaks (@Boomieleaks) February 7, 2021
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has come under fire from the media and the left and was recently removed from her Congressional committees, wondered where Bush stood on riots:
You support riots @CoriBush?
According to the link, “Everybody housed at the Justice Center is housed there because of very serious offenses like assault on police officers and homicide and things of that sort.”
How does this fit with your resolution in the #HouseOfHypocrites? https://t.co/e02q2rnr1o
— Marjorie Taylor Greene
(@mtgreenee) February 7, 2021
Many Bush defenders were quick to differentiate between “riot” and “insurrection.”
Dictionary.com defines riot as “a noisy, violent public disorder caused by a group or crowd of persons, as by a crowd protesting against another group, a government policy, etc., in the streets.”
They define insurrection as “an act or instance of rising in revolt, rebellion, or resistance against civil authority or an established government.”
A Google search for “Capitol riot” returns 229,000,000 results, with news outlets TIME, NBC, CNN, New York Times, CBS, and USA Today describing the event as such.
When speaking to the local NBC affiliate immediately following the Capitol Hill riot, Bush describe those storming the Capitol as “not protesters, not demonstrators, that was violence happening in our Capitol.”
Based on that, it seems fair to wonder where exactly Bush stands on riots.
Apparently, Congresswoman Bush has learned the art of Washington D.C. Democrat double standards quickly.
The post ‘Squad’ Member Rep. Cori Bush Defends Prison Riot After Condemning Capitol Riot appeared first on The Political Insider.
By James Sieja for RealClearPolitics
Perhaps they are thinking about the next election or their political legacies, but Democrats and some Republicans intent on impeaching and convicting former President Donald Trump are not reading the Constitution correctly.
When the Senate trial begins Monday, there will be lots of grandstanding and lawyerly pettifogging, and we will find out if Democrats can convince 17 Republicans that they need to convict the former president.
Fortunately, I don’t think they’ll succeed. I say fortunately because impeaching Trump would be wrong, constitutionally speaking.
Forty-five Republicans recently voted that this second Trump impeachment trial is in itself unconstitutional. They are incorrect.
The bipartisan group of 55 senators who voted to proceed to the trial think that the Senate can apply a sanction after conviction. Constitutionally, they’re wrong, too.
Republicans are wrong because the plain text of the Constitution, as Michael McConnell, a Stanford professor and former federal judge, points out, makes no exceptions or qualifications to either the House’s “sole power of impeachment” or the Senate’s “sole power to try all impeachments.”
Therefore, the Senate clearly has the power — what legal scholars call jurisdiction — to try the case.
But, jurisdiction is not the only consideration enshrined in constitutional law.
Two other concepts, standing and justiciability, are central to any court’s decision-making at the beginning of a case. Along with jurisdiction, courts call them, collectively, “threshold questions.”
Because senators, especially the ones looking to convict, exercise judicial power when they try any impeachment, they would do well to take seriously the requirements for standing and the Supreme Court’s rules for justiciability.
Standing refers to someone’s ability to bring a case to court in the first place. In the 1992 case Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, the late Justice Antonin Scalia listed three factors that comprise the “irreducible constitutional minimum” basis for standing.
While people probably know Justice Scalia for his acerbic dissents, the Lujan majority today is likely his most widely cited uncontroversial opinion.
In the second Trump impeachment, the relevant element of the Lujan trio is the last one: The court must be able to give a final, binding judgment to the party that wants a punishment.
RELATED: Rand Paul Roasts Hypocrisy Of Impeaching Trump, Doing Nothing About Chuck Schumer, Waters, And Omar
The House wants to punish Trump for his actions. Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution plainly declares the required punishment: “The president … shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of … high crimes and misdemeanors.”
“Shall” means it must happen. The Senate can’t remove Trump from a position he no longer holds, which means it can’t punish him. Thus, the House lacks standing.
To be clear, the House retained standing while Trump retained the presidency. But, once he left, the case became moot — purely a matter for discussion, like the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.
“Wait!” supporters of conviction cry out. “There’s also the bit in Article I about disqualifying a person who’s been impeached from holding office ever again.”
That is true, but the passage doesn’t improve the logic of a post-presidency Senate punishment in the least. No matter how long we “Wait!” the Senate will still not be able to render the required punishment, so the standing problem remains.
More importantly, the disqualification punishment presents a justiciability question. Justiciability refers to the ability of a court to effectively resolve the case.
Over several cases, the Supreme Court has identified a bunch of factors that lead to justiciability issues, but all of them stem from a single idea: It’s not the court’s job to decide this, but rather it’s somebody else’s job.
If the Senate tried to disqualify Trump from holding the presidency again, it would arrogate a privilege — determining who will not be president — that the Constitution explicitly reserves to another body: We the People.
Thus, there is a clear justiciability problem with disqualification if it tries to block anyone — Trump, you, me, anyone — from winning the presidency or other elected office.
RELATED: Hiding Biden: How Democrats Crafted First Impeachment, Helping Defeat Trump With Media Help
Alexander Hamilton declared that the Constitution stood for the idea “that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.”
However imperfectly, this is what we do in districts and states throughout the country. And we choose through the Electoral College, a defense of which the current impeachment ironically springs from.
For the House and Senate, a mere 535 citizens, to absolutely bar nearly 160 million from a completely free electoral choice turns the Constitution upside down.
Ultimately, the Senate can exercise its clear jurisdiction to hear the case, complete with senatorial bloviations, and lawyerly dodges.
But, if the outcome is anything other than the status quo ante, meaning Trump remains eligible for the presidency in the future, the Senate will deal a grave blow to not just the Constitution but to every member of We the People who thinks they still have a choice.
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
The post Constitutional Professor: Why Senate Cannot Bar Trump From Being President Again appeared first on The Political Insider.
“The View” co-host Meghan McCain said on Monday that reports of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy asking Congresswoman Liz Cheney to apologize for her vote to impeach former President Donald Trump was concerning.
McCain said Republican leadership taking this route was a “losing strategy.”
Watch the video below.
McCain said on ABC, “There was a really interesting report that came out in Axios over the weekend that said that Kevin McCarthy actually asked her to apologize for voting for impeachment, and she said that.”
“She said people in the caucus asked me to apologize, and she said that publicly,” McCain said.
According to Axios, before the GOP conference met to decide the fates of Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene, GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had asked Cheney to apologize.
McCain said it worries her that McCarthy or any other Republican would think that voting for impeachment was something to apologize for.
“It’s interesting to know that it’s the leader of the caucus that asked her to do that, and she defiantly said she won’t apologize, and she has nothing to apologize for,” McCain insisted.
LIZ CHENEY TELLS GOP TO STOP EMBRACING TRUMP: After the congresswoman was censured by the Wyoming Republican Party for voting to impeach Pres. Trump for his role in the Capitol Hill riot, @JoyVBehar and @MeghanMcCain discuss her role in the party. https://t.co/u9t7w7C7Yb pic.twitter.com/vbM95nSCZ5
— The View (@TheView) February 8, 2021
She continued, “I now am feeling very concerned about the fact that the leader of Republicans in Congress seems to think that if you are for impeachment, you have something to apologize for and atone for, and I do think that’s a losing strategy.”
McCain is worried there isn’t enough love for the “Liz Cheneys of the party,” and included herself in the same category as Cheney.
“I’m very skeptical of the big-tent party narrative right now because it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of love for the Liz Cheneys of the party,” McCain complained, adding, “which I guess at this point includes me.”
Reminder: Kevin McCarthy did everything he could to keep Liz Cheney in House GOP Leadership. https://t.co/9VL388rSKS
— The Columbia Bugle
“The View” co-host also added that she is worried about the future of the GOP when a “red-blooded conservative” like Cheney can be treated this way.
“I’m very skeptical of the promises that we will respect the Liz Cheneys after this,” McCain said. “My question is, how long until we start trashing her?”
“I think she’s doing good work now, but at a certain point, she’s a red-blooded conservative,” McCain insisted. “She’s not a squish or a RINO.”
“She is not someone in the middle,” McCain finished.
McCain and Cheney exemplify what many in the conservative movement consider the Establishment of the GOP, who are out of step with the base that largely aligns with President Trump.
In a measure of how out of step she may be, Cheney has been censured by the Wyoming state Republican Party, and at least 10 County Republican Parties in Wyoming for her vote to impeach Trump.
Commentator Dick Morris recently said Cheney has a ‘snowball’s chance in Hell’ at getting re-elected.
RELATED: If Republicans Put America First, They’ll Remove Liz Cheney, Not Donald Trump
Watch the segment here:
The post Meghan McCain Calls Bashing Liz Cheney, Pro-Impeachment Republicans A ‘Losing Strategy’ appeared first on The Political Insider.
