Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics [CREW] president Noah Bookbinder said he will move under the 14th Amendment Section 3 stating that anyone engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States shall be prohibited from running for public office. Bookbinder assumes that the Jan. 6 House Select Committee has proved that Trump engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. Jan. 6 Committee Co-Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.), soon to be out of office in January, insists without proof that Trump orchestrated the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, when no such evidence exists. No committee in U.S. history has been more partisan, more biased against former President Donald Trump than the House Select Committee. Committee members cherry picked witnesses and evidence to do what House Democrats couldn’t do in two impeachment trials.
Bookbinder truly believes that the 14th Amendment bans Trump from running for public office, but only if he can show the former president actually engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the United State. Bookbinder, like Cheney or other partisan members on the Jan. 6 House Select Committee, may be convinced Trump engaged in treason but no court of law has made that determination. Getting a group of Trump-hating Democrats and Republicans to all say he’s “guilty” doesn’t mean the former president committed any crimes, certainly not “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. “Should you seek or secure any further elected or appointed government office including the presidency of the United States, we will pursue your disqualification,” Bookbinder said, assuming facts not in evidence. Bookbider’s another anti-Trump partisan hack.
Bookbinder’s group CREW is a nonprofit organization, not a court of law. Bookbinder, a partisan Democrat, wants to do anything to prevent Trump from running for president in 2024. Claiming that there’s overwhelming evidence that Trump violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, Bookbinder has no legal case, only wild conjecture based on a malign interpretation of facts in evidence. Anything exculpatory for Trump, including the fact that he was acquitted Feb. 13, 2012 of “incitement of insurrection” in the U.S. Senate impeachment trial, what possible evidence is Bookbinder talking about? He cites 26-year-old Cassidy Hutchinson as a smoking gun, because she claimed Trump tried to irrationally commandeer his Secret Service limo, grabbing the steering wheel on Jan. 6. Hutchinson admitted she was not in the limo and had no personal knowledge of any alleged incident.
So, that’s the kind of partisan rubbish that Bookbinder calls overwhelming evidence that Trump violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. With a criminal justice system like Bookbinder advocates, due process would be impossible under the 14th Amendment. Why isn’t Trump given the presumption of innocence by Democrats and the press? “By summoning a violent mob to disrupt the transition of presidential power mandated by the Constitution after having sworn to defend the same, you made yourself ineligible to hold public office again,” Bookbinder wrote. “The evidence that you engaged in insurrection as contemplated by the Fourteenth Amendment—including by mobilizing, inciting and aiding those who attacked the Captiol—is overwhelming,” said Boodbinder. No on knows where Boodbinder gets his facts. But it’s not from the Jan. 6 House Select Committee.
When it comes to former President Donald Trump, due process under the 14th Amendment has been abandoned. Bookbinder and other Democrat hacks can talk about “overwhelming evidence” or accuse Trump, like Cheney, to planning or orchestrating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, but there’s no legal evidence or proof. How did Trump “summons a violent mob,” when he wasn’t at the Jan. 6 riot? House Democrats, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (RD-Md.) insisted in Trump’s second impeachment trial that he “incited insurrection” by delivering an angry speech at the Ellipse in D.C. in the morning prior to the Capitol riot. Yet the FBI concluded that Trump’s speech had nothing to do with what lawbreakers and rabble-rousers did Jan. 6 vandalizing the Capitol. Bookbidner says he has “overwhelming evidence,” but partisan conclusions, grotesque leaps on logic, don’t count as facts or evidence.
Making headlines for CREW, Bookbinder has no legal basis to prove in any federal court that Trump violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Claiming the evidence is “overwhelming” that Trump summoned an angry mob to the Capitol has not been proven by a jury in any court of law. Where Bookbinder, an attorney, thinks the Jan,. 6 House Select Committee proved their case “beyond and reasonable” doubt is anyone’s guess? Wild speculation and unproven conjecture does not meet any legal standard. Bookbinder has no legal case against Trump based on any known facts-or-evidence to come out of the Jan. 6 House Select Committee. Believing Liz Cheney doesn’t not constitute a legal argument, only more wild speculation and conjecture. No federal court would consider Bookbinder’s claim that Trump violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment without a conviction in federal court.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
