[link removed] [[link removed]] John, this month, CREW went to the Supreme Court to defend our lawsuit win that barred Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado.
We’ll do everything in our power to hold Donald Trump accountable for inciting an insurrection and threatening our democracy, and we need your support to do it. If you already know you’re with us and you're able to pitch in a few dollars to help us out, click here to do so → [[link removed]]Here’s some more information about why our fight is so important:
At the Supreme Court, Donald Trump’s lawyers essentially attempted to convince the Supreme Court that he was a monarch—not the president in a democracy. They argued that Trump cannot be disqualified from holding office, because, as his lawyer put it, “Trump is not covered by Section 3 [of the Fourteenth Amendment] because the president is not ‘an officer of the United States’ as that term is used throughout the Constitution.”
Why would the Constitution permit a president who encouraged an attack on Congress to hold any offices, but disqualify anyone else who participated in the same insurrection? That’s a question Trump and his lawyers just haven’t answered.
The Constitution’s 14th Amendment does not hinge on semantics. It hinges on whether, as a country, we want to treat presidents like kings who can't be held accountable.
Presidents are officers of the United States. Take it from those who led our country at the time, and those who wrote the Amendment.
Andrew Johnson, who was president when the 14th Amendment was framed, routinely referred to himself as “the chief civil executive officer of the United States.”
The members of the 39th Congress who framed the 14th Amendment routinely referred to the president as an officer of the United States. Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio, a Republican, maintained that the president was “the chief executive officer of the United States.”
Not to mention a month after Congress sent the 14th Amendment to the states for ratification, the House of Representatives approved a committee report that declared that the Constitution used the phrases “officer,” “officer of the United States” and “officer under the United States” indiscriminately, and that all officers should be considered officers of and under the United States unless the context makes clear that a more limited use was intended.
It is clear that the drafters of Section 3 in the 1860s intended it to apply to the president.
Trump was a president bound by law, not a monarch above the law, and as an officer of the United States, he engaged in an insurrection against the Constitution he swore to protect, preserve, and defend. Now he has to be held accountable.
John, we need your support in our fight to hold Donald Trump accountable.
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