Based on common sense alone, the appeal states, “there would be no reason to allow Presidents who lead an insurrection to serve again while preventing low-level government workers who act as foot soldiers from doing so. And it would defy logic to prohibit insurrectionists from holding every federal or state office except for the highest and most powerful in the land.”
Would love to see this go to the US Supreme Court and have them say, “yes the POTUS can commit insurrection and not be disqualified”
I think they would likely not hear the case because of the position it would put them in politically.
It’s kind of insane on the face of it.
One of the reasons given for the ruling is that, while various officer positions are called out explicitly in the 14th, President and Vice President aren’t, though an earlier version did include them specifically. And then were removed. At least that was the part that stood out to me. It seems crazy that the writers of the 14th would do that, fully intending to allow insurrectionists to be elected to these powerful positions but not to Congress. Wtf?
There were other arguments. E.g., one regarding past cases where the president is considered an “officer” and another where other parts of the Constitution refer only to those appointed by president as officers.
As a resident I am very interested to see what happens. The ruling indicated that DT did engage in insurrection (the document goes over all the supporting reasons to interpret “engage” and “insurrection” in this way).
I can’t think of any particular reason why they would want to exclude POTUS or vpotus other than it was redundant in “officer” as it is in the corporate world.
