Trump's latest ballot-ban rebuttal demolished by Watergate prosecutor
Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman Friday scoffed at the latest argument against banning Donald Trump from presidential ballots in Colorado and Maine.
In both states, the former President Donald Trump was disqualified under the Insurrection Clause of the 14th Amendment, although the Colorado case currently rests on Supreme Court action.
Trump's legal team has argued that Section 5 mandates Congress enforce the amendment, not the state officials who have considered the legal challenges, citing the text, "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
"I do not think that argument holds water," said Akerman. "Essentially, the provision provides they can remove the disability by two-thirds vote from each house of Congress. That is all it says. Other than that, this is just a regular qualification for an individual to run for President of the United States, just like being 35 years old, having to have been born in the United States, having lived and resided in the United States for at least 14 years. It is really no different than that. In this situation there is a circumstance where Congress could remove that disability by the two-thirds votes."
Despite all of this, Akerman added, it is still important that this issue be resolved at the federal level, because deciding it state by state is going to lead to a mess.
"I think that, ultimately, the only arbiter here, really, is the United States Supreme Court," Akerman continued. "They are the ones that have to enforce this. Otherwise you are getting yourself into it situation with 50 jurisdictions, 50 states, who will come at this in different ways ... you are going to get some states that can't make decisions because they have technicalities in their laws that did not permit them to make those decisions."
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