A Florida lawyer is challenging former President Trumps ability to run for president in 2024 under the U.S. Constitutions 14th Amendment, citing the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Lawrence Caplan, a tax attorney in Palm Beach County, filed the challenge in federal court Thursday, pointing to a clause in the amendment that says those who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the government cannot hold office.
The challenge was first reported by The Palm Beach Post.
The bottom line here is that President Trump both engaged in an insurrection and also gave aid and comfort to other individuals who were engaging in such actions, within the clear meaning of those terms as defined in Section Three of the 14th Amendment, Caplan wrote in the filing. Assuming that the public record to date is accurate, and we have no evidence to the contrary, Trump is no longer eligible to seek the office of the President of the United States, or of any other state of the Union.
Caplans challenge is one of the first questioning the legality of Trumps 2024 bid, though Trump is also facing criminal charges at both the state and federal level over his actions to undo the results of the 2020 vote.
The former president is currently the far-and-away front-runner in the GOP presidential primary.
In an interview with The Hill, Caplan said that someone had to take the lead on challenging Trumps candidacy.
This is a scary, scary guy, and if hes president, I think were all on the way to fascism, he said. Theres no law that says we have to remain a democracy forever.
In the filing, Caplan wrote that the facts of his case are undeniably simple. In 2016, Trump won the presidential election, and in 2020, he lost it. The following Jan. 6, Trump encouraged a throng of supporters to march to the Capitol, saying hed be right there with them, Caplan wrote.
As we are well aware, the throng marched on the Capitol, forced their way into the Capitol building, ransacked the rotunda area, and even made their way into several offices of representatives and senators, he wrote.
The 14th Amendments disqualification clause was written in the context of the Civil War, meant to bar those who had joined the Confederacy from serving in state or federal office. But it would theoretically still apply to those who engage in future rebellions or insurrections against the U.S., according to Cornell Universitys Legal Information Institute.
Caplan told The Hill that he did not originally believe Trumps role in the Capitol attack could disqualify him from becoming president again. That changed when he read an analysis by former 4th Circuit Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig and Harvard legal scholar Laurence Tribe.
In an article published last week in The Atlantic, Luttig, a conservative, and Tribe, who is liberal, contended that Trumps efforts to remain in power after losing in 2020 place him squarely within the ambit of the disqualification clause.
Trumps grand jury indictments in the Washington, D.C., federal case and the Georgia case probing those efforts make his disqualification automatic, Caplan said.
Trump surrendered to authorities on the Georgia charges Thursday evening, becoming the first former U.S. president to have a mug shot taken.
The common sense of it is that the law says that someone whos indicted for causing an insurrection is automatically ineligible to run for federal office, Caplan told The Hill.
conservatives call Jan 6th a "peaceful protest" and won't recognize that it was an insurrection.
FLORIDA MAN face turn shocks wrestling world!
Er, political world. (Is there any difference?)
conservatives call Jan 6th a "peaceful protest" and won't recognize that it was an insurrection.https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/4/8/AAdZpjAAEyKg.jpg
I know our state rightfully gets shit on for our shithead governor but you know it used to be a swing state and most of the cities are blue, right. The Palm Beach and Broward areas are blue as fuck.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/4/8/AAdZpjAAEyKg.jpg"it's just a coincidence that someone with head trauma died the next day from a blood clot in the head! nothing to do with what happened on 1/6 at all!" - some now banned trumpers on 261
it will probably be forced in front of the supreme Court and they will rule against it
This...
Rare W for Florida. But I can't believe we still entertain a traitor to becoming the President of the United States. Off top he should be jailed let alone be able to run for President.
Like, imagine if Osama bin Ladan ran for President.
Im actually wondering about this actually, I would think that the SCOUS may not rule/give a deferment depending on how it was handled
I mean.....he's rightHe would have to be convicted of it first to apply. He hasn't yet
They most likely would not rule Trump out of contention, not just for partisan politics, but the precedent of disqualifying candidates would be opening a can of words where any state could try to get a major candidate kicked off an election in the future...
If it hasn't been close to purple since the 90s how did Obama win twice? I'm pretty sure it was a gradual decline. It was considered a swing state in the 2016 election
Bet Ron DeSantis is paying that lawyer to take down Trump so he can become president.
Oddly enough, the Federalist Society, the organization that gives us all our shitty right-wing judges, has said Trump should be disqualified from being POTUS per the Cons. over Jan 6th.
Have they really?