(Patriot Insider) – It’s terrifying to think that the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, and thus the survival of the America we know and love, could hinge on one single decision handed down from the United States Supreme Court. That’s exactly the situation we currently find ourselves in, as the highest court in the land is set to consider whether or not former President Donald Trump is “an officer of the United States” as mentioned in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Anyone else getting knots in their stomach over this?
According to a report issued by the Daily Caller — a news organization co-founded by Tucker Carlson — “Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, was disqualified from appearing on the primary ballots in Colorado and Maine after the former’s Supreme Court and the latter’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, respectively, ruled that he was ineligible for federal office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.”
“That provision of the Constitution, passed after the Civil War to prevent former Confederate leaders from holding federal office, reads: ‘No person shall…hold any office, civil or military, under the United States…who, having previously taken an oath…as an officer of the United States…to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,'” the report continues.
The former president has filed appeals in both cases, with the one in the state of Colorado already having been granted certiorari, by SCOTUS last week.
BREAKING: The Supreme Court agreed to take up Trump's appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court's decision finding him ineligible to appear on the state's ballot. Oral arguments are scheduled for Feb. 8. @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/xPUvqLryNA
— Katelynn Richardson (@katesrichardson) January 5, 2024
Trump raised a critical question to the court in the petition he made for certiorari, which was whether or not the office of president counted as being an “officer of the United States.” As the phrase is used in the amendment, it does not clearly indicate if the president or vice president meets that definition.
This question has legal experts divided.
Today, a lawsuit citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was filed in Illinois to bar Trump from the ballot.
He's already been banned in Maine and Colorado.
SCOTUS will surely have the final word, but here's what you need to know about the underlying argument. pic.twitter.com/SntuiwJrWt
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) January 5, 2024
“‘The answer is yes,’ said Laurence Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor Emeritus of Law at Harvard University, to the Daily Caller News Foundation, answering whether the president is an officer of the United States. Tribe referred the DCNF to other commentaries he published, where he has opined that the amendment’s prohibition covers ‘all officials who ever swore to support the Constitution,'” the report stated.
The oath of office that the president takes when being sworn into office says they must “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution. “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” says Article II, Section 1 of our nation’s founding document.
However, other experts and legal scholars say that’s not the case at all.
“You look at the Colorado opinion, and they say anybody who holds an officer as an officer [of the United States]. That’s not correct,” Richard Epstein, the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at New York University, went on to tell the DCNF, also stating that “what you have to do is to take a look at the appointments clause under Article II, and you’ll see a very different interpretation cropping forward.”
“The ‘appointments clause’ refers to Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, which specifies the power of the president to ‘nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate…appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States.’ Epstein argues that the language of the appointments clause precludes the president from being considered an officer of the United States, since they must be appointed by the president and the president does not appoint himself,” the Daily Caller noted.
“What clearly happens is the president is the person who holds an office but he’s not an officer. The officers are the people who are appointed under the appointments clause,” Epstein explained. “It makes no sense to say that he is governed by it.”
Andy McCarthy, who is a senior fellow with the National Review Institute and the former First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, also supported this line of argumentation.
“I do not believe Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies to the president (or, for that matter, to the vice president),” he said in comments delivered to the DCNF.
“[T]he drafters of Section 3 intentionally omitted the president and vice president…it makes no sense that the drafters would include the electors for those positions, but not those positions themselves,” McCarthy stated, noting the amendment makes mention of “elector[s] of President and Vice President” but excludes a mention of the presidency or vice presidency. “The default position in the law is that when important constitutional rights are at issue, a provision must be very clear before we conclude that it calls for the denial of those rights. Section 3 does not pass that test when it comes to the presidency.”
A third group of experts believe there is no simple answer to the question.
The bottom line is, the election seemingly hinges on this one issue. There’s a lot of hope for the decision to go Trump’s way considering the majority of justices lean conservative and toward an originalist interpretation of the Constitution. But you never know what might happen, so say a whole lot of prayers.
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