[link removed] [[link removed]] John, this is going to be a long email, but please, take a few minutes to read it.
This week, the Supreme Court overturned the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Donald Trump from the ballot for inciting insurrection.
While this wasn’t the outcome we were hoping for, our end goal remains the same: holding Donald Trump and insurrectionists accountable. That’s what our goal has been since day one.
Even before we brought our lawsuit against Trump, our team had been researching the 14th Amendment, other precedent-setting cases, and reviewing the evidence. We’ve taken on difficult fights trying to hold leaders accountable – and we won.
The Supreme Court may have allowed Trump on the ballot, but they didn’t exonerate him for inciting the insurrection. We always have fought for accountability for insurrectionists – and we don’t plan on stopping any time soon.
We’ll tell you more about our work below, but first, we’re asking you to help ensure we can continue fighting to hold insurrectionists – including Trump himself – accountable. Please, make a contribution to CREW today → [[link removed]]If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:
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Here’s what our argument is, and has been:
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, also known as the Disqualification Clause, explicitly bars any person from holding federal or state office if they took an “oath… to support the Constitution of the United States” as a federal officer and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or gave “aid or comfort” to insurrectionists.
Elected officials like Arizona Representative Paul Gosar, Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano and others have been called out for their involvement in the January 6th insurrection.
As elected leaders, they swore an oath to the Constitution, and then either joined the mob that breached police barriers and swarmed law enforcement at the United States Capitol or helped orchestrate the rallies on January 6th and related attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. They must be investigated and if warranted, they should be disqualified from office under the 14th Amendment.
We know that it works, because we’ve done it before.
When Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin mobilized and rallied rioters to breach the Capitol grounds on January 6th, he violated his oath by participating in and aiding the insurrection. He had to be removed from office.
So CREW took our case to court. At trial, CREW and our co-counsels presented reams of evidence of Griffin’s mobilization, incitement and participation in the insurrection, including numerous photos and videos of his actions and speeches on January 6 and the weeks surrounding it.
And John, we won! A New Mexico judge ordered Griffin be removed from office, effective immediately, ruling that the attack on the Capitol was an insurrection and that Griffin’s participation in it disqualified him under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
So we used the same argument to hold Trump accountable.
But our fight to hold Trump accountable for the insurrection had started long before our lawsuit.
In the aftermath of January 6th, CREW was one of the first organizations to call for Donald Trump’s impeachment and for his enablers to be expelled from Congress. We launched an investigation into the Trump administration’s delayed response to the armed insurrection. We filed a criminal sedition complaint against Trump.
Then we decided to take on our biggest fight yet: We sued Donald Trump.
The evidence was overwhelmingly in our favor. The January 6th Select Committee found that “the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”
Hundreds of Trump supporters who showed up to Trump’s rally on January 6th and subsequently charged the Capitol have said that Trump is the reason behind their actions.
The Department of Justice has even charged Donald Trump with crimes related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
But despite the evidence, we knew taking on a former president wouldn’t be easy. We knew that the odds were stacked against us, but no matter how challenging the path or how many people said we couldn’t do it, we knew bringing this fight was necessary to protect our democracy.
Our democracy faces a much greater threat if no one steps up to protect it. That’s why our fight isn’t over yet.
The Supreme Court didn’t dispute the finding that Trump incited an insurrection. Now it’s up to us to keep holding him accountable.
Help us make it happen. Please, donate to CREW today and join us in the fight for accountability → [[link removed]]If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:
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Thank you,
CREW
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