The Constitution Has a Disqualification Clause. Trump’s Withdrawal from Syria Has Triggered It.

[aubiefifty 18,222]

The Constitution Has a Disqualification Clause. Trump’s Withdrawal from Syria Has Triggered It.

StrategyCamp

5-6 minutes

Takeaways:

- The Constitution has a Disqualification Clause. It is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

- Trump’s withdrawal from Syria has triggered the Disqualification Clause.

- Violations of the 14th Amendment must be decided by the federal court system — not Congress.

Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment reads:

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

If we clear out the clutter, this piece of the Constitution more clearly states:

“No person shall… hold any office…to support the Constitution of the United States… [that has] engaged in insurrection or rebellion against [the Constitution]…or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

Further, it would take two-thirds of the Congress to overturn a court’s conviction.

Despite Trump’s efforts to downplay the adversarial relationship between the United States and Russia and upgrade their standing on the global political stage, Russia is and has been a long standing political and military adversary of the United States. By pulling out of Syria, Trump has given Russia a strategic advantage in the region they would have otherwise not been able to attain. This advantage comes at the expense of American national security.

It can be argued that by puling troops out of Syria, Trump not only gave aid and comfort to our enemies — he gave them Syria.

As the title of a recently published article in the Washington Post notes, “Trump’s moves in Ukraine and Syria have a common denominator: Both help Russia.” The report goes on to describe:

“Russia announced Tuesday that its military is patrolling near the northern Syrian town of Manbij, moving to fill a security vacuum after Trump pulled U.S. troops from the area.

Russian forces are now operating between the Turkish and Syrian militaries, helping to fulfill Moscow’s main aim of shoring up its alliance with Syria and the Russian military port housed there — an outcome Russian President Vladi­mir Putin has sought for years.”

As impeachment proceedings continue, more evidence of a comforting relationship between Russia and the Trump Administration will be revealed. This information can be used to bolster a Fourteenth Amendment claim in a federal court that Trump’s relationship with Russia was nothing if not comforting.

Russia wasn’t the only beneficiary of Trump’s withdrawal from Syria, though. The other main beneficiary of Trump’s Syrian pull-out is ISIS. In fact, the benefits to ISIS are so pronounced, even Fox News has spoken out against it. For example, Fox News Reporter Colin Clarke recently published an alarming piece entitled, “ISIS is big winner from US withdrawal from Syria.”

Over 12,000 people with ties to ISIS reside in Syria and hundreds more were being held in prisons there under the watch of Kurdish forces. As the Kurds have been forced to abandon their posts to defend themselves from a Turkish slaughter, hundreds of members of ISIS have already escaped and concerns that they will reorganize in Syria and many of the Middle Eastern and European countries from which they were detained are becoming a quick reality.

There are many divides in this nation, but one of them is not that ISIS is our enemy. And as reported by media outlets, politicians, and military officials across party lines, Trump’s withdrawal from Syria has given them great aid and comfort.

The Constitution was designed to protect the nation from our enemies — both internally and internationally. While impeachment proceedings can and should continue in Congress in relation to the Administration’s quid-pro-quo with the Ukraine, additional charges need to brought against Donald Trump, the Trump Administration, and every member of the Republican party that has either assisted him in his Fourteenth Amendment violations, or attempted to prevent investigations into these violations in a federal court of law.

Should they be found guilty of violating the Fourteenth Amendment, Section Three of the Constitution, these members of the Republican Party would be disqualified from running for re-election in 2020. And it would take two-thirds of the Congress to overturn this conviction.

The nation is not safe so long as our enemies are operating out of the highest levels of our federal government. And while we may not be able to remove them from office using the Fourteenth Amendment, we may be able to prevent them from running for re-election. And we have a Constitutional responsibility to do so.

You can find Dr. GS Potter on Twitter at https://twitter.com/strategistirl

[AUDub 11,833]

That's a reaaaaaaaally big stretch. 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

36 minutes ago, AUDub said:

That's a reaaaaaaaally big stretch. 

Yeah.  I don't like POTUS at all but the author's take is really awful here.

[AU64 10,122]

13 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

Yeah.  I don't like POTUS at all but the author's take is really awful here.

Does kind of reek of desperation …..so why not just beat him at the polls and quit looking for these kinds of arcane interpretations of the constitution or the law in general. 

I'm not a big POTUS fan but anything like this argument that twists the accepted reading of the constitution  just to deal with DT becomes a precedent that can / will be used against future Presidents who make unpopular decisions.   Dangerous stuff IMO.   As I say...just elect someone else in a year and the "problem" is solved. 

[Tiger Sue 325]

33 minutes ago, AU64 said:

Does kind of reek of desperation …..so why not just beat him at the polls and quit looking for these kinds of arcane interpretations of the constitution or the law in general. 

I'm not a big POTUS fan but anything like this argument that twists the accepted reading of the constitution  just to deal with DT becomes a precedent that can / will be used against future Presidents who make unpopular decisions.   Dangerous stuff IMO.   As I say...just elect someone else in a year and the "problem" is solved. 

Be careful what you wish for. Which Dem with a chance of getting the nomination would solve the problem?

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

48 minutes ago, AU64 said:

Does kind of reek of desperation …..so why not just beat him at the polls and quit looking for these kinds of arcane interpretations of the constitution or the law in general. 

I'm not a big POTUS fan but anything like this argument that twists the accepted reading of the constitution  just to deal with DT becomes a precedent that can / will be used against future Presidents who make unpopular decisions.   Dangerous stuff IMO.   As I say...just elect someone else in a year and the "problem" is solved. 

Why did Rs go after Clinton in 99 over lying about oral sex?  Your argument doesn't work here considering the precedent has already been set.

Now, this is a stretch but the author.  However, the quid pro quo that Mulvaney flat admitted to is a major problem and is beyond the acceptable behavior of any elected official, much less POTUS.

[AU64 10,122]

16 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

Why did Rs go after Clinton in 99 over lying about oral sex?  Your argument doesn't work here considering the precedent has already been set.

Now, this is a stretch but the author.  However, the quid pro quo that Mulvaney flat admitted to is a major problem and is beyond the acceptable behavior of any elected official, much less POTUS.

Thought we weren't to use the "what about " defense.   and I recall BC lied about the oral sex under oath....which is perjury I think.  As for the scandal of the day,  Mulvaney just told the truth where as  most of the folks in DC will just lie to your face.  Like HC and their foundation which used her office as a lure for money from all over the world.

But that's OK...go ahead and spend your time, energy and money trying to get DT on some impeachment charge which about any honest dem knows is not gonna make it out of the Senate.... 

Just seems like the best way to get rid of DT is to come up with a practical and appealing platform and beat him at the polls.  All this grasping at straws just tells me that most dems have already conceded the election to DT in 2020.....they just won't say so out loud.    JMO

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

4 minutes ago, AU64 said:

Thought we weren't to use the "what about " defense.   and I recall BC lied about the oral sex under oath....which is perjury I think.  As for the scandal of the day,  Mulvaney just told the truth where as  most of the folks in DC will just lie to your face.  Like HC and their foundation which used her office as a lure for money from all over the world.

But that's OK...go ahead and spend your time, energy and money trying to get DT on some impeachment charge which about any honest dem knows is not gonna make it out of the Senate.... 

Just seems like the best way to get rid of DT is to come up with a practical and appealing platform and beat him at the polls.  All this grasping at straws just tells me that most dems have already conceded the election to DT in 2020.....they just won't say so out loud.    JMO

Wait.  So is your argument essentially "Who cares if it's illegal as long as they tell us about it?" Because that's exactly how this reads.

[AU64 10,122]

4 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

Wait.  So is your argument essentially "Who cares if it's illegal as long as they tell us about it?" Because that's exactly how this reads.

nah.....saying that the swamp is still the swamp....and nothing has really changed...and nothing is likely to change as long as a trillion bucks is budgeted each year through the federal spending process. When the dems did not care about their people (HC or Bernie) doing it, the rest of the nation is gonna say..."'so what".....it's just selective ethical concerns. 

 

[SaltyTiger 8,568]

58 minutes ago, AU64 said:

 

But that's OK...go ahead and spend your time, energy and money trying to get DT on some impeachment charge which about any honest dem knows is not gonna make it out of the Senate.... 

Just seems like the best way to get rid of DT is to come up with a practical and appealing platform and beat him at the polls.  All this grasping at straws just tells me that most dems have already conceded the election to DT in 2020.....they just won't say so out loud.    JMO

No excitement about any dem candidate. Now we discover a couple are Russian agents. Concerning when you see these Trump rallies if you are not a POTUS fan. 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

1 hour ago, SaltyTiger said:

No excitement about any dem candidate. Now we discover a couple are Russian agents. Concerning when you see these Trump rallies if you are not a POTUS fan. 

I wouldn't say concerning.  Even Nixon still had a +30% approval rating as he was resigning despite the mountain of evidence against him.  People don't like the reflection that they may be wrong and made a bad choice.  So they tend to double down.  There's actually some good psychological research on the phenomenon.

[TitanTiger 21,239]

Sorry, but that's a ridiculous take.  You have to twist yourself into quite the logical pretzel to believe a military decision, as callous and boneheaded as it may be, would disqualify him as president.

Stick to the stuff that's obvious and we know he's done.  Don't reach for goofy fanciful interpretations of the Constitution to do it.

[aubiefifty 18,222]

18 hours ago, AUDub said:

That's a reaaaaaaaally big stretch. 

i often post stuff i am not sure about just to read responses to hopefully get a better understanding. sometimes it even works.

[homersapien 12,226]

17 hours ago, AU64 said:

But that's OK...go ahead and spend your time, energy and money trying to get DT on some impeachment charge... Extorting a foreign government by making congressionally-approved military aid to that government contingent on their investigating the son of your political opponents is clearly an impeachable offense.

....which about any honest dem knows is not gonna make it out of the Senate.... Maybe so, but that's a problem for Republicans, not the Democrats.

Just seems like the best way to get rid of DT is to come up with a practical and appealing platform and beat him at the polls.  That's certainly one way, but it doesn't preclude oversight responsibility as represented by the impeachment inquiry.  And obviously, exposing Trump's corruption will certainly play a role in the next election, so it's not like an impeachment inquiry is incompatible with defeating him electorally.

All this grasping at straws just tells me that most dems have already conceded the election to DT in 2020.....they just won't say so out loud.  JMO See my first response.  Democrats are not grasping at "straws".  Most Americans understand the seriousness of what Trump did.