Prominent conservative legal scholars are increasingly raising a constitutional argument that 2024 Republican candidate Donald Trump should be barred from the presidency because of his actions to overturn the previous presidential election result.

  • AggressivelyPassive
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    21 year ago

    So what?

    I’m not defending Trump, but convicting him, solely because of how others interpreted his messages is extremely dodgy.

    Here, again, it’s up to judges to decide whether these tweets show intent to send these messages. Could Trump reasonably expect that these tweets would be received as an “order” to storm the Capitol?

    • @trafficnab@lemm.ee
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      11 year ago

      Well, if it wasn’t his intent, he sure did sit watching it on TV until it was clear that the US government would not be overthrown, instead of swiftly taking action like any other president would when congress is under attack

      We had to rely on Pence, hiding in the capitol basement, to actually attempt to manage this thing

      • AggressivelyPassive
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        11 year ago

        Again, so what?

        Negligent, sure. But that’s not the point.

        You keep arguing on a moral level, which is entirely besides the point. The question is: is he guilty of insurrection? Not bad presidenting, not shitty behavior.

        • @trafficnab@lemm.ee
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          11 year ago

          It’s strong circumstantial evidence that the attack on the capitol (which itself is just a component of his overall objective to illegally overturn the election results) was his intention all along

            • @trafficnab@lemm.ee
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              11 year ago

              I suppose it would ultimately be up to the supreme court to define what exactly that eligibility requirement (that you basically have to have never tried to overthrow the government) as written in the constitution means, but that doesn’t actually immediately involve a conviction of Trump for anything (as “being under the age of 35” doesn’t require some sort of criminal conviction)

              In the hypothetical scenario, someone would try to remove him from the ballot, and the supreme court would either uphold or reject that based on their interpretation of the language of the amendment