(Breitbart) Three former U.S. attorneys general — including Bill Barr, who does not support Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination — insist that Trump is constitutionally qualified to be on the presidential ballot, in a U.S. Supreme Court brief their lawyers filed on Thursday.
Along with Barr, former Republican Attorneys General Edwin Meese III and Michael B. Mukasey, as well as several law professors, comprised the amicus in the Trump v. Andersonbrief. After the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision that Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, colloquially known as the “Insurrection Clause,” bars Trump from the ballot, his legal team and the Republican Party of Colorado challenged the effort.
US Attorney General William Barr (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
The argument at the center of the brief –of which law professors Steven Calabresi and Gary Lawson and the group Citizens United are also Amici Curiae– is that the clause does not pertain to candidates for the presidency:
The amicus cites the historical record of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was passed soon after the United States Civil War in 1868.
Former Attorney General Edwin Meese applauds as President Donald Trump speaks during a ceremony to present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Meese, in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon
“Historical records, moreover, reveal that the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment were not concerned that a Confederate leader could attain the presidency,” the brief noted. Instead, the framers and ratifiers harbored worries “that former Confederates might be elected to the House or Senate, which explains why those offices are enumerated in Section 3.”
“Winning offices in States of the former Confederacy was the only realistic risk, and Section 3 was tailored to address that concern,” the brief adds.
What is more, the language of the text lists a hierarchy ranking of public officials, beginning with U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives, as the brief highlights, and makes no explicit mention of the office of the presidency. The brief argues that other language included in the section was not understood historically to include the presidency:
The amicus goes on to assert that “even if the conclusion that he engaged in an insurrection were correct, President Trump cannot be excluded from any presidential election ballot on that basis.”
Michael Mukasey on FBN”s Sunday Morning Futures, 8/14/2022
