Donald Trump angrily refuted the claims on his Truth Social platform that the 14th Amendment would prevent him from running for president again.
He wrote: “Almost all legal scholars have voiced opinions that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis or standing relative to the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election.
“Like Election Interference, it is just another ‘trick’ being used by the Radical Left Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, to again steal an Election that their candidate, the WORST, MOST INCOMPETENT, & MOST CORRUPT President in US history, is incapable of winning in a Free and Fair Election. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
On Sunday, Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia had said that a legal case can be made to use the 14th amendment to remove the former president from the ballot in 2024, citing Mr Trump’s involvement in the events surrounding the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
“In my view, the attack on the Capitol that day was designed for a particular purpose at a particular moment and that was to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power as is laid out in the constitution,” he said in an interview with ABC News. “So I think there is a powerful argument to be made.”
Mr Kaine said: “I thought actually it might have been a more productive way to go than the second impeachment to do a declaration under that section of the 14th amendment.”
More voices have recently joined the chorus claiming that Mr Trump’s actions in the wake of the 2020 elections call for a disqualification.
Two legal scholars, retired conservative federal judge J Michael Luttig, and Harvard Law professor emeritus Laurence Tribe wrote in The Atlantic last month that the constitution prohibits Mr Trump from ever being president again.
“The disqualification clause operates independently of any such criminal proceedings and, indeed, also independently of impeachment proceedings and of congressional legislation,” they wrote.
“The clause was designed to operate directly and immediately upon those who betray their oaths to the Constitution, whether by taking up arms to overturn our government or by waging war on our government by attempting to overturn a presidential election through a bloodless coup.”
