MAGA followers are furious after two former Supreme Court clerks released an opinion piece laying out how Congress could to disqualify President-elect Donald Trump under the Insurrection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, for his role in inciting the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Former Ivy League law review editors Evan Davis and David Schulte, who also previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, argue that “The Constitution provides that an oath-breaking insurrectionist is ineligible to be president.”
“This is the plain wording of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution,” wrote Evan Davis and David Schulte for The Hill. “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … 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.”
“Disqualification is based on insurrection against the Constitution and not the government,” they added. “The evidence of Donald Trump’s engaging in such insurrection is overwhelming. The matter has been decided in three separate forums, two of which were fully contested with the active participation of Trump’s counsel. ”
In their opinion piece, the authors emphasized the unlikelihood of congressional Republicans doing anything that might elect Harris. But their article triggered widespread outrage from MAGA fanatics and pro-Trump commentators. Some went so far as to call this in itself an insurrection attempt, and demand the authors be arrested simply for suggesting it, in sarcasm to imply Trump’s 2020 plot wasn’t really an act of insurrection.
Eric Trump reacted on X, writing: “You people are sick!”
“Told you they would try this as a last ditch effort,” wrote far-right personality Laura Loomer.
Log Cabin Republicans president Charles Moran piled on writing, “Trump derangement syndrome on full display in then DC media echo chamber.”
“This insane article basically boils down to ‘yeah, all the legal attempts to stop Trump failed, but the January 6th committee said he’s bad so we should do a coup to stop him.’ Incredible,” wrote Red State’s Bonchie.
“Trump won the popular vote, every swing state, and the electoral college,” replied right-wing commentator Rogan “D.C. Draino” O’Handley. “The Hill is now plotting an insurrection to stop him. Disbar the authors of this article and send the FBI into their offices. That’s how it works right?”
Former GOP House Foreign Affairs Committee member Jerry Dunleavy joined the outrage, stating: “The former editors-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review & of the Yale Law Journal want Congress to engage in what would be among the most egregious abuses of power in the history of the republic by overturning a democratic election & blocking a duly-elected president from office.”
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung went further, accusing Democrats of trying to “teal the election and invalidate the will of the American people,” and calling them a “Threat to Democracy.”
